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I forgot to mention yesterday that one of the cool things about the movie Frida is the integration of a Brothers Quay short film within the narrative structure of the movie. The director, Julie Taymor, uses the puppets of the two twin brothers and cult filmmakers to illustrate the gore aspect of the operation that Frida Kahlo had to go through after her bus accident. According to this article from The Village Voice, it looks like that very short sequence in the movie was at the center of a fight between the director and the Miramax Studio people.

Taymor, known for her avant-garde puppetry and for directing the stage version of The Lion King and the movie Titus, seems like the perfect filmmaker to bring Frida to the screen. The two artists share a visual sensibility that combines fantastical and folkloric imagery with tactile realism. « I was very attracted to the notion of how to realize her paintings in a surreal way, » Taymor says. She brought in lyrical-goth animators the Brothers Quay to reenact Frida’s post-accident hallucinations�a scene that some believe is at the heart of a dispute between Taymor and Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein.

« The movie will be amazing if Harvey Weinstein keeps his hands off of it, » says Herrera, whose biography was the basis of the screenplay. « If you’re hiring a genius like Taymor, you can’t then say, I want to cut these 10 seconds or whatever it is. And she’s as fierce as he is. She is the most focused person I’ve ever worked with. »

It does look like Taymor was the perfect person to direct this movie…

By Martine

Screenwriter / scénariste-conceptrice