KISS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN
US, 1985, 115 minutes, Black and White and Colour.
William Hurt, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga.
Directed by Hector Babenco.
Kiss of the Spiderwoman was one of the most successful and acclaimed films of 1985. It received the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. William Hurt was named Best Actor. It had many awards including Golden Globe and Oscar nominations (for film, director, actor).
The film was written by Leonard Schrader, Paul Schrader's brother, who was responsible for several of his screenplays and authored Mishima. The film is adapted from the novel by Manuel Puig. Both Puig and director Hector Babenco (Pixote) are Argentinians. However, the film was made in Brazil - and reflects life and prison and torture in South American countries.
The film works well as a prison drama, as a contrast of characters (William Hurt excellent as the mincing Molina) contrasting with Raul Julia (as the Left-wing journalist). The film seems to be a prison film until it is revealed that Molina is meant to play spy on Valentin. The subsequent film becomes grimmer as the two men interact, depend on each other, both die (each entering the other's world - of realism and fantasy). The fantasy occurs in the film descriptions, visualised, that Molina tells to pass the time. one is a.film about the Nazi occupation of Paris - and is a typical Nazi style espionage film. (Author Puig identifies this film as her real glory). The second film is a fantasy with a Spiderwoman in love with a sailor shipwrecked on her island - where Valentin goes at the finale.
The film is intelligently written, excellently acted - and a satisfying piece of human and political drama.
1. Audience interest in the film, its acclaim, awards?
2. The work of Hector Babenco, the South American perspective? Feeling? Manuel Puig and the adaptation and streamlining of his novel? The blend of film and social human comment? Schrader and the American perspective on South American work? The international cast? The film emerging as a Brazilian film?
3. Colour photography, the capturing of the atmosphere of the prison, light and dark. the enclosed atmosphere. characters and close-ups, the intercutting and interaction, movement outside the cell - from the cell door, to the offices of the authorities, to the flashbacks on the railway station, to the streets of the city?
4. The films within the film and their style: war, a Nazi version of a Casablanca-style melodrama, stylised look, costumes and colour, the Nazi background., French affluence, the femme fatale and espionage? The contrast with the fantasy of the Spiderwoman and the shipwrecked sailor? The end and the idyllic seascape for Valentin's escape? The strategic placing of the sequences from the films within the film?
5. The opening and the focus on the two men, the expected prison sequences, the cells, two men, privacy, invasions on privacy, the detail of life within the cell - meals. sleeping, talking? The interaction of the two men? Talking and listening? Differences, telling their stories, friendship and understanding? The irony when the audience learned that Molina was persuaded by the authorities to spy on Valentin? The watching of what was happening in the opposite cell? illness, care - and the film's emphasis on the griminess and earthiness of the experience? Brought vividly home to the audience? Molina and his trying to seduce Valentin in terms of giving information about his political connections?
6. The two men as individuals, the placing of audience sympathy? The respective crimes? The behaviour of the two men in their interactions? The details of character? Molina as criminal, child molester, homosexual, flamboyant, comic flamboyance, appearance, manner, the feminine touch - seeing himself as identifying with the heroine of the films?
