Tag: nails

Exhibition on Screen
Frida Kahlo
Special Edition
with new material from
The making of an icon

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 19 May 2026
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Frida Kahlo
Special Edition
with new material from
The making of an icon
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Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939 © EXHIBITION ON SCREEN

Director – Ali Ray – 2020, 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 93m, 101m

*****

The tragic yet resonant life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, and her transformation into a modern, cultural icon – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, May 19th

As dour piano chords play, a title announces that Frida Kahlo held only three solo exhibitions in her lifetime. This is contrasted with an auction where “one of her most complex self portraits” The Dream (The Bed) / El Sueño (La Cama) (1940) auctions for a starting price of $22m and selling for $47m. As of November 2025, this was the highest ever value for a work by a female artist achieved at an auction.

Now, in 2026, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Tate Modern, London collaborate on a major exhibition entitled Frida: the making of an icon, opening on Friday, June 19th at the Tate. Exhibition on Screen’s Special Edition of their 2020 film concludes with ten minutes of newly shot footage of that exhibition.

Frida works at a writing desk as she (voice: Diana Bermudez) reads the latter she is composing. You notice the ornate rings on her fingers, her lavish earrings, the green and yellow jungle design of her print dress as she talks about “too much pain… It will take me years to get out of this mess I have in my head.… Read the rest

Tags 1910 Mexican Revolution, a German immigrant, abortion, activist, advertising, affair, Alfredo Vichis Roque, Ali Ray, Amelia Mesa-Bains, androgynous, animals, Anna Chancellor, anti-birth, anti-colonial, architect, art, art exhibition, artist, Astrid Hadad, athletics, attention-seeking, auction, bedridden, biographer, biographies, bisexual, bleeding, bleeding womb, blood, blood vessel, bone treatment, boyfriend, braid of flowers, brand, Brandels University, brown-skinned heroine, buried, bus accident, Carlos Phillips Olmedo, Carmen Lomas Garza, Casa Azul, Catherine Wood, Catholic, celeb, censorship, Chicano, Christian, Christian symbolism, civil rights, civil war, clothes, colonialism, colour photographer, Communist Party, communities, confined, consumer culture, corpse, counterculture, cracked landscape, Cristina Kahlo, curator, day and night, defiant, defiant gaze, desolation, Detroit, Diana Bermudez, dictatorship, Diego Rivera, Diego Riviera, disability, divorce, divorce proceedings, doctor, doctor’s orders, dog, dog deity, Dolores Olmedo Museum, earring of a hand, earrings, exhibition, Exhibition On Screen, faith journey, fathers and daughters, female body, fingerprint, folk culture, fractured spine, Frida Kahlo, Frida Kahlo Museum, Frida: the making of an icon, Gabriel Porras, gallery, Gannit Ankori, gay identity, gender fluidity, global brand, global food supply, green, group show, Hayden Herrara, Hilda Trujillo, Hindu, Hindu symbolism, historian, hope, hospital visits, housebound, Houston, husbands and wives, hybridisation of plants, iconicity, identity, injury, Interim Director, Juan O’Gorman, Las Cachuchas, Latin American Art, Le Corbusier, left-wing, letter, library, London exhibition, love affairs, Luther Burbank, Madonna and child, male and female, man plant, manifesto, Mari Carmen Ramirez, marriage, Mary McCartney, matriarchy, medical bills, medical training, menagerie, Mexican art, Mexican Woman, Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico City’s National Preparatory School, miscarriage, mixed race, mothers and daughters, mouth, Munchausen syndrome, mural, Muralism, museum, Museum of Fine Arts, myth, nails, naive painting, necklace of thorns, new government, new social movement, New York, newspaper article, Nickolas Muray, nun, opening night, opposites, ornate rings, orthopaedic brace, pain, painting, Paris, philosopher, Polio, politics, portrait, posing for photographs, pre-Hispanic art, pregnancy, Professor of Art History, prostitute, public buildings, religious paintings, Renaissance, retablos, retablos artist, revolution, revolutionary, roots, rules, Rupert Garcia, San Francisco, sartorial identity, schooling, scientist, self-portrait, sexual violence against women, sisters, skull, solo exhibition, Spain, Spanish / Indian descent, Spanish colonialism, spider-monkey, stabbed to death, still life, student movement, studio, sun and moon, surgery, surgical scissors, Surrealism, Tate External Curator, Tate Modern, Texas, the Blue House, The Human Condition, three quarter portraits, Tijuana, Tobias Ostrander, torso, tourist boats, Tracey Emin, trauma, UK, umbilical chord, underworld, US, vaginal blood, Warhol, Warholesque silkscreen print, wealth, women artists, work from photographs, workers' rights, writer, writing desk, Xolotl, Yasumasa Morimura, yin and yang

Features Live Action Movies

Sorcery (Brujería)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 June 2024
3 Comments on Sorcery (Brujería)
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Director – Christopher Murray – 2023 – Chile, Mexico, Germany – Cert. 15 – 100m

*****

When the father of an indigenous Christian convert is murdered by her German Christian employer’s dogs, her thirst for justice leads her to employ occult folk magic against his family – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 14th

1881. Chiloé, the Northernmost island of an archipelago off the coast of Chile. Indigenous, 13-year-old Rosa (Valentina Véliz Caileo) works as a maid for German immigrant Stefan (Sebastian Hülk from All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger, 2022; Little Joe, Jessica Hausner, 2019; The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke, 2009) who together with his wife (Annick Durán) runs a sheep farm. The couple have two young boys, Thorsten (Matías Bannister) and Franz (Iker Echevers). The family are Christians, and Rosa is a convert to that religion.

One day, Stefan’s sheep lie dead in his field, with woven garlands of vegetation round their necks. With tensions understandably high, Rosa’s father approaches Stefan holding a knife, and Stefan releases his two dogs upon him, killing the man. Rosa later places a makeshift cross of two sticks bound together on his basic grave, which she and Stefan’s family visit, Stefan’s wife pointing out that the man wasn’t a Christian.… Read the rest

Tags 13 year old, 1880s, 1881, afterlife, Annick Durán, archipelago, arrest, art house movie, beach, belief system, Bible, bird corpses, birds, cave, Chile, Chiloé, Christianity, Christians, Christopher Murray, coast, communing with nature, convert, corpses, cross, Daniel Antivilo, Daniel Muñoz, death, dogs, drama, family, farm, fever, fire, firelight, firing squad, fisherman, German, German immigrant, grave, gutting fish, Heaven, horror, Huilliche, Iker Echevers, immigrant, in woodlands, incarceration, indigenous, indigenous convert, island, knife, landscape, Leo Heiblum, maid, Matías Bannister, mayor, miscarriage, murder, nails, natural world, nature, Neddiel Muñoz Millalonco, nets, organised farming practices, pray, pregnant, rain, religion, sea, sheep, sheep farm, social justice, sorcery, suffering, tide, torch, torch procession, torchlight, torture, tree, Valentina Véliz Caileo, weather, weirding woman (Neddiel Muñoz Millalonco, witch, witchcraft, woods

Features Live Action Movies

Kidnapped
(Rapito)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 22 April 2024
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(Rapito)
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Director – Marco Bellocchio – 2023 – Italy, France, Germany – Cert. 12a – 135m

*****

A boy is forcibly taken from his Jewish family by the Pope to be raised as a Catholic priest because he has been baptised into the Catholic faith – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 26th

Italy, the mid-nineteenth century. The Papal States will have disappeared by 1870 as Italy moves towards unification. In the meantime, they are still under the administrative control of the incumbent pope, Pius IX.

Bologna, 1852. A maid sees off a soldier in the night following a romantic tryst. The soldier is neither here nor there; the maid, Anna Morisi (Aurore Camatti) will play a significant part in what follows. The life of a nine-child Jewish family is about to be disrupted forever.

The home of the very ordinary Mortalo family, who are Jewish: father Momolo (Fausto Russo Alesi), mother Marianna (Barbara Ronchi) and their nine children. The parents are deeply religious and raise their offspring accordingly, teaching them, among other things, to recite the Shema prayer every night before they go to sleep. One night in 1858, they are visited by the authorities under Feletti (Fabrizio Gifuni) who have come to take away one of their children under Papist law.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Kidnapped

One God, two families

Kidnapped
Directed by Marco Bellocchio
Certificate 12a, 135 minutes
Released 26 April

This Italian drama, based on true events, is set when the papacy was both the head of the Roman Catholic Church and the state authority in parts of Italy, a situation that would change with Italian unification in the 1870s and the instigation of a secular, country-wide system of government. There would be implications for the separation of church and state.

In 1858, six-year-old Jewish boy Edgardo Mortalo (Enea Sala) was removed from his family by the papist authorities following his Catholic baptism (how he was baptised emerges later) and taken to a school run directly by Pope Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon) to educate such ‘Christians’ in the faith and turn them into priests.

The Church’s theological rationale behind this appalling action… [read the rest at Reform]

[Read my longer review on this site]

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