There are no known recordings of Frida Kahlo’s voice. But the iconic painter, who died in 1954, tells her own story in director Carla Gutiérrez’s documentary “Frida,” which is guided by her words (spoken by actress Fernanda Echevarría) from interviews, essays and diaries.

Acclaimed for its semi-animated visual strategy, the film (available on Amazon Prime) is also a sensory aural experience, propelled by a passionate, rhapsodic score by Victor Hernández Stumpfhauser. The Burbank-based, Mexican-born conductor and songwriter’s credits include features, shorts and three compositions on the “Birdman” soundtrack.

For the documentary, he said, “I thought of the music as Frida’s inner voice, sort of like her spirit. We think of Frida as very strong, loud, rebellious, which is an important part of her, but I wanted the music to also relate to the vulnerable, intimate side of her personality. It’s an aspect of Frida we don...