Miyako Ishiuchi is one of Japan's most formidable photographers — a woman who has been passionately interested in women and their bodies for the whole of her 50-year career. At 68 years old, her fascination with the female physique remains intact, but over the past six years she has added two subtexts to her work: death and memory.
Ishiuchi's interest has shifted from photographing women's bodies to depicting their posthumous lives through personal effects. Her photo book of images showing the belongings of the victims of Hiroshima's nuclear bombing, "Hiroshima Strings of Time," inspired Linda Hoaglund's 2012 documentary, "Things Left Behind."
Now Ishiuchi's work has become the basis for another documentary: Tadasuke Kotani's "Frida Kahlo no Ihin" ("The Legacy of Frida Kahlo"). This film shows Ishiuchi's working process as she inspects and photographs Frida Kahlo's belongings, including a collection of gorgeous, elaborately embroidered dresses. Other things are poignant reminders of Kahlo's physical condition: shoes with heels of differing height (Kahlo contracted polio in childhood, which left one leg longer than the other), or plaster corsets (at 18, a horrible bus accident shattered her pelvis and spinal column).