Amazon has quietly released a documentary about Frida Kahlo that is uniquely animated to represent her style, and is told through her Owen voice and/or words. The draw here would be, well, the drawings. The animation bringing to life this story, and doing so in a way inspired by one of the most recognizable artists of all time. However, as a blind film critic, it was really just a documentary. Without the ability to wow me with the visual intentionality, how did the audio description help Frida?
Well, the audio description done here by the Media Access Group has quite a few hands on it. I apologize in advance for batching anyone’s name, but the description is written by Ken Geetree, Becky Yamamoto, and Katherine O’Rourke, with the voice talents of JM Longoria and Brianna Leon. Yeah, that’s what I got from hearing the credits. So, three people got together to try and figure out how to do an English Audio Description track that features a Spanish speaking artist, that is animated, and somehow convey all those themes to the audience. They still have to work through all the spoken parts built into the film, often using the voice talent to translate it into English. But, they also try to describe visually what’s happening.
Honestly, this is probably one of the hardest films to get done this year, and likely a very thankless project. i think this landed on Amazon with all the fanfare of getting an electric bill. Either Amazon just didn’t promote it correctly, or people weren’t asking for this. I wonder if it did better in other territories. the last time we had a film like this, it ended up nominated for three Oscars, in Animated Feature, Documentary Feature, and International Feature. Frida likely will miss that mark.
I instead watched this as a straight Frida Kahlo documentary, and from that I learned more about the artist. In terms of that experience, this film just felt long. I know it probably felt more rewarding to a sighted audience who could be impressed by the quality of the animation but for me, it was just like hearing Frida in her own words. Often, giving context to historical figures rounds out the documentary well, and Frida is so focused on telling her story from her words that we don’t learn about why she’s important to the art movement. not everyone is an art history major, and likely a lot of people only know what they saw in Salma Hayek’s portrayal.
I think there have been some excellent documentaries already this year, and there were many last year. Frida just gave me some more perspective on an artist I was familiar with, but wasn’t fresh. I respect the hell out of what the audio description team was asked to do, and how they tried to deliver, but you ccan’t actually build Rome in a day. We just can’t get the whole experience from this, which alters the experience for us. Whether or not you will enjoy it will depend on your desire to know more about Frida, without context from anyone but herself.
Final Grade: B-
