Reviews (138)

Salma Hayek's career-defining film
I was quite impressed by Salma Hayek's single-minded determination to get this film produced in the face of heavy competition from others. She felt destined to play Frida Kahlo, and the film was a labor of love that is evident in every frame. Kahlo's bold and colorful paintings are heavily autobiographical, and so it is unavoidable that the film takes us on a journey through her life and work all at once. As we see events in Kahlo's turbulent life unfold, we automatically understand the content of the artist's paintings as they are presented to us.

Hayek also found probably the ideal director in Julie Taymor, who has quickly established herself as one of the most visually gifted filmmakers in the industry. Taymor's handling of the actors is first-rate, as she brings spirited performances from the entire cast. Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography is equally excellent, with lots of dazzling camera tricks and numerous painting-like shots. The film also benefits from terrific lighting effects, makeup, set design, vibrant costumes, and an outstanding, Oscar-winning score.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the film's opening scene, which turns out to be a very clever and unconventional way of introducing Kahlo to the audience ... but you'll just have to see the film to know what that means.

My only criticism with the film, and a minor one, is that the pace is almost breathless, and so the film feels more compact than it really should. It almost always rushes like a river when sometimes it should flow more gently.

This film clearly belongs to Salma Hayek, and she occupies the role so enormously that it's hard to imagine anyone else taking on the character of Frida Kahlo with as much verve. It's nothing short of a career-defining performance, and her Oscar nomination was well earned. My earnest hope is that Hayek will find equal inspiration in the years to come, because the movie industry needs the kind of passion and resolution she brought to this project.

Beautiful sight.
Julie Taymor's portrayal of the life of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo breaks away from conventional biopics and occasionally enters what seems to be the inside of the artist's surreal mind. Still, the film doesn't seem much different from most biopics.

Salma Hayek is fine as the famed painter, but she fails to play such a complex character on more than one level. However, she does capture Kahlo's beauty, and does well when her character is acting passionately. Alfred Molina is also adequate as the repeatedly unfaithful husband - you almost believe him when he says that "[sex] doesn't mean anything!". The film is also peppered with rather small supporting roles, all performed well enough: Ashley Judd as Italian expatriate Tina Modotti, Antonio Banderas as rival Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, Geoffrey Rush as the Russian exile Leon Trotsky, Edward Norton as greasy bourgeios American Nelson Rockefeller, and the exceptional Valeria Golino as Lupe Marin, Rivera's ex-wife.

Elliot Goldenthal's intriguing musical score plays over the absolutely gorgeous Art Direction and Set Direction by Bernardo Trujillo and Hannia Robledo, respectively. The film is a visual and audial cinematic triumph.

However, Taymor's direction straddles between avant-garde moviemaking and conventional melodrama. The screenplay, by a collaboration of writers, fails really to delve into the characters' inner-feelings, especially of the title character, despite the frequent, lively trips inside her mind. In short, we see in this film all that happened to Frida Kahlo in her life, and it's beautiful along the way, but most of us are still left knowing little about her true character other than her conventional descriptions as communist, lover, and painter.

A Work of Art
I LOVED this film. Selma Hayek embodies Frida Kahlo and, from what I've read in Frida's journals, gives a very accurate portrayal of this gifted and complicated character. Mixing animation--making paintings come alive--was a brilliant touch. I'll watch it again and again especially for the colors, but also in the brief history lessons provided.

Bravo!

Emotionally riveting! Not a typical biopic.
I'm usually disappointed when it comes to biopics; apparently they are very hard to make. Getting inside the head of a surrealist painter and telling her life in two hours with only celluloid and a soundtrack seems like an impossible task. But you wouldn't know it to experience this hauntingly beautiful symphony of sights and sounds which is in itself a work of art. I disagree with most of the criticisms on this thread. The beginning is not boring; I was convinced I had to own this DVD within the first twenty minutes. The writing is brilliant and moving. Most biopics fall into the trap of being a mere chronology of events. This one succeeds where most fail: it is a story. The characters are all rich, deep, real, and thereby completely loveable. Of course it is probably scientifically impossible to not find Salma Hayek loveable. In this film, though, everyone shines. Trotsky, Diego's ex-wife, even the bar musicians radiate with human beauty. Salma Hayek has shown the world that she is quite capable of taking the lead in a serious role. And with a role as powerful as Frida Kahlo, if it's done right, the resulting portrait achieves its potential as a masterpiece.

Convincing portrait!
I was a little bit skeptical in the beginning because of difficulties associated with approaching this topic and because my doubts in acting abilities of Salma Hayek. I was wrong on both accounts. The movie is both very well done and doesn't step aside from history. It's amazing how Salma Hayek looks like real Frida. The same could be said about other characters judging from photos (besides Diego Rivera). The movie is a combination of art (almost every scene is practically a statement), romance and political farse (although maybe the last quality wasn't intended). It creates a very convincing and tragic portrait of this very strong woman. Thumbs Up!! ... Read more

Reviews (220)

A Beautiful and Haunting Debut
Julie Taymor, of Broadway's "Lion King" fame, creates a dazzling surreal anachronistic fantasy world with her feature film directorial debut. "Titus" (lately, "Titus Andronicus,") though thought to be Shakespeare's worst play, is a beautiful symphony of distruction, murder, deception, seduction, rape, and cannibalism...at least it becomes so under Taymor's careful direction. The choreographed opening scene of marching soldiers weary from battle in the middle of the collesium sets the tone for a very unlikely brilliant piece of film. Alongside armored soldiers on horseback, people ride down the street in automobiles of various periods. A jazz band accompanies the new young emperor's wedding night orgy. And two young Gothic barbarians in furs trade in their furs for leather and video games. This movie is beautiful, intelligent, and above all unexpected. You can't help but like Aaron the Moor, who prides himself on his villany. Even the queens young sons you can't help but find fascinating, despite their rape of Titus' young daughter Lavinia.

Anthony Hopkins, as always, is brilliant in the title role of Titus. A man dedicated to his country and his emperor and upholds duty above all else...even willing to risk his daughter's unhappiness by consenting to her marriage to the young corrupt emperor Saturninus. Saturninus however eventually marries Titus' captive Gothic queen, played with true sinister brutality by the unrepentantly sexy Jessica Lange. One of her sons you might even recognize from the movie "Velvet Goldmine." Saturninus is played by the always talented and sexually enigmatic Alan Cumming who seems to take great pleasure in imitating more politicians than you could shake a stick at. But hands down the show is stolen by Henry Lennix, playing the evil Aaron, the queens trusted friend and consort. Aaron never apologized for all the pain he has inflicted or his evil ways...he revels in them.

The ending is not unexpected considering most Shakespearian tragedies...but I won't ruin the finer points. Suffice it to say, my personal favorite scene involves the queens two sons, Lavinia, and some twigs put to some very interesting use...this scene sticks with you long after the movie has ended...as beautiful and haunting as it is horrifying.

Titus (2000) d: Taymor, Julie
Titus Andronicus is arguably the most complicated play ever penned by the great William Shakespeare. It is also one of the darkest and most violent plays, filled with shocking scenes, and obscene human behavior. Using the original old English, this movie mixes things up a little using outrageous situations, and brilliant visual touches of ancient Rome, fascist Italy, and a coke-a-cola post everything media assault. The new emperor played by Alan Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Cumming marries a vengeful queen (played by a sometimes topless Jessica Lange) who has two vicious punk rock sons who torment Roman warrior Titus (played by Anthony Hopkins). In scenes comparable to Silence of the Lambs (1991), Titus seems to lose his mind after his two sons are decapitated and his daughter is raped, she has her tongue cut out and her hands chopped off. Revenge soon follows in a cannibalistic dinner served to the guilty, 'a la Theatre of Blood (1973) with Vincent Price. The DVD contains many extras. A excellent film with something to offer both young and old alike. Not only is it hard to believe the depths the movie delves into, but even more incredible is that this epic picture by Julie (Lion King) Taymor is a directorial debut. Impressive first try..., we can't wait to see another.

I Gave it 4 Viewings
Ms Taymor, let me say at the outset, is a highly creative director. Loved the Broadway show (The Lion King). She's innovative, imaginative, extremely adept at visual imagery, etc. What she isn't is adept at interpreting The Bard. The DVD version had her meeting with a group of NYU students discussing the production and the play, in which she showed exactly how shallow her understanding of Shakespeare actually is. Her focus was entirely on her vision, rather than his text. That shows up, rampantly in the movie. It's all about her and her imagination, never centering on the text or the innner beauty of Shakespeare's most brutal play.

I'm not saying that all the bard's plays have to focus on the grand design of the poetry, the meter, the frangrant, redolent language, but at least lip service should be paid there. In this version, we get stuffed with so many Taymor pipe dream (and I do mean a loaded hookah!) visuals, that the language is submarined into oblivion. Even so consummate an actor as Anthony Hopkins (why isn't he Sir Anthony, by now? ..get off your keister, Queenie!) can't compete with the hyperactive Ms Taymor and her busycam. She's obviously aiming for the Art House crowd (of which I am a sometime member, but not in good standing here, obviously), but she misses even that mark. Most of the "innovative" interpolations, such as the young kid who provides the framing device, are entirely superfluous, thereby losing any actually artistic force they might have achieved. It's nothing but empty window dressing.

The performances are largely execrable, including Sir Tony, I hate to report. His version of the Brando mumble is ill suited to the title role. Jessica Lange gives a nadir plumbing performance in a career that features a few of them. She was a lot more convincing in King Kong, trust me. The rest of the Mad Max rejects were even worse.

The reason I gave this film four viewings before sending the DVD on to a friend, was I thought perhaps it was just me, and I was being too reactionary or cynical about this brave new look at what is actually, in a way, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Then, midway through viewing #5, I thought, "nah....this thing really is as bad as originally perceived."

Last I heard, "The Lion King" was still playing on Broadway. My suggestion is, buy tickets to that, next time you are in NYC. As for this Turkey, my advice is to rent it if you must. Otherwise, don't put yourself through the torture I did.

BEK

Brilliantly stylized; unique
Every once in a while, a movie comes along which you feel was made just for you. I can understand why a lot of people might not like this film, but for certain people I think it might be just what they were looking for.

Taymor's production, instead of trying to somehow mitigate the remorseless violence and moral vacuum which characterized the much-maligned play, intentionally plays it up. The garishness of the plot is complimented by the garishness of the anachronistic costumes, the elaborate staging and the delerious, overdramatic acting. It gets right to the heart of what a revenge drama is, and what value can be found in Andronicus just as a pure visceral experience. A lot of great performances, and the images are brilliant. My only complaint is, given the pacing of a modern film, it's difficult to hear and understand all of the dialogue sometimes, since none of it was 'updated' from the original Shakespearean. Given the stylized nature of everything else, maybe some of the dialogue should have been simplified.

Writing this now, comparisons to Kill Bill are inevitable, and, while it can't quite claim to reach that pedestal, and lacks the ultimatley morally redeeming value of the complete KB, I recommend it to fans of the KB pt. 1 as a similiar experience.

Taymor adapts vengeance and its consequences...
Titus is based on Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, which is an extremely bloody and terrifying tale of vengeance and its consequences. The cinematic adaptation that Julie Taymor wrote is set in a Roman Empire-like environment with crossings of ancient and modern as the mise-en-scene displays cars as well as tanks with soldiers in ancient armor. This creates a link between then and now, which could suggest that the displayed horror is timeless and possible even today. Taymor creates exaggerations in this cinematic environment with brilliant cinematography, grand directing, and mise-en-scene that amplify the abstract atmosphere as it elevates the unnatural doings of Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins), Tamora (Jessica Lange), and Saturninus (Alan Cumming) among others. The Shakespearian violence that Taymor presents serves as the means to an end as the story plunges into a dark realm that most do not wish to visit, but must contemplate as it could have devastating effects on all.

The film opens with a scene where a young Lucius is sitting at the kitchen table, with a brown paper bag over his head, eating dinner while sadistically tearing the heads of his warrior dolls while violently smashing the items on the table and pouring ketchup over the "killed" dolls. This is followed by an explosion where Lucius dives bawling to the floor for protection. Lucius is a clear resemblance of his father Titus in the opening shot. The rest of the film is a carnival of hideous acts and morbid behavior that alll falls around Titus with a domino effect trigged by one wrong decision. Despite the distressing elements of Titus, the film offers a brilliant cinematic experience that devours the audience as it supplies several subplots and themes, which the audience should ponder under the light of human compassion and the word "consequences". ... Read more