Bone Wind Fire (Désert Vent Feu)

Inspired by Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall's book Carr, O'Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own, filmmaker Jill Sharpe's documentary illustrates how the visual aesthetics of 20th-century artists Emily Carr, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Frida Kahlo were inspired by their surroundings. The cinematography here is gorgeous, displaying O'Keeffe's stark New Mexico deserts, Carr's lush British Columbia rainforests, and Kahlo's colorful Mexico City home and neighborhood. What the artists saw in these environments is reflected in the bold, richly envisioned images they created: O'Keeffe's oversized flowers and sun-bleached skulls, Carr's native totem poles, and Kahlo's hallucinatory scenes of illness and isolation. Bone Wind Fire imagines the artists' daily lives in brief dramatic re-enactments accompanied by narration drawn from their letters and journal entries—musings about the creative process and their approach to painting—punctuated with occasional low-key visual effects. Sadly, the women's works initially suffered from a scathing critical reception that was based as much on their personal lives as on artistic merit. Serving up compelling visuals and evocative first-person narrative, this well-crafted, informative documentary is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (M. Puffer-Rothenberg)