Le baiser de la femme-araignée

The first time I saw this movie it had just been released. The theater was packed and my wife and I ended up sitting in the front row on a wing. I hated the movie. I couldn't understand what all the hoopla was about and it just didn't sit well. My wife and I discussed the movie after wards and she couldn't believe I didn't like it. She liked it a lot. After discussing it I agreed to see it again and not sit in the front row. I quickly discovered I was wrong about the movie. William Hurt and Raul Julia are outstanding. This movie resonated on many different levels that it's hard to describe. The friendship between the two main characters was absolute regardless of their present unfortunate situation. They are two ordinary people thrown together by fate in an extremely difficult situation and they make the best of it. The conflicts going on around them would destroy lesser men. Their reality is bleak, at best, and they find a way to survive. Powerful performances at every level are the order of the day. Sonja Braga is a delightful distraction as real as any fantasy. I can't wait for this movie to come out on DVD!

I know the film has a reputation for being a great film, but frankly this was never one of my favorites. It really boils down to a two-character study that was probably ideal for the stage but doesn't transfer that well to film. The only thing that relieves the static nature of the film are the dreams and flashbacks that add some much needed color to the story.

Otherwise, it's a study of relationships--a gay man and a straight man share a prison cell in South America and the only thing that keeps the gay man in a survival mode is recalling in detail tacky movies he's seen in the past--and thus the title, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN.

WILLIAM HURT does the campy role well and was rewarded with a Best Actor Oscar while RAOUL JULIA is the straight man who gradually comes to love and respect his cellmate for the human being that he is, letting go of his homophobic attitude long enough to share a tender moment with a gay man who has come to love him and who decides not to betray him, as the authorities hoped he would when they planted him in the cell.

It's a strange, quirky story, certainly not for everyone's taste and it took courage to make the film in the first place, knowing it would have limited appeal at the box-office.

I just never found it to be the exceptional film some are calling it.

A bizarre, evocative film which seems strange even now -- I can't imagine what audiences made of it in 1985.

William Hurt and Raul Julia play cell mates, one gay, the other straight, rotting away in a Latin American prison under the iron thumb of a tyrannical dictatorship. At first, Julia's Latin machismo makes him repelled by Hurt's flamboyant femininity, but the two gradually bond, thrown together as they are, and discover a kind of love that transcends conventions about love and sex and that can probably only exist between two people surviving in extreme conditions.

Hurt, already known as a strapping leading man at the time, took quite a risk playing this fey character, especially at a time when movies still weren't comfortable with mainstream portrayals of gays, but his risk payed off -- he won that year's Best Actor Academy Award and became just about the hottest actor in town for a few years there in the mid-80s. Julia has a much less showy role, but the success of the film is dependent upon the strength of both male leads, and he delivers. Sonia Braga plays the eponymous spider woman, a dream figure cobbled together by both men from their imaginations and memories of old movies.

This film is a big downer, but if you enjoy well-acted, well-written stories, then the depressing ending is worth it.

Grade: A

Babenco's, Kiss of the Spider woman, is one of many forgotten master pieces. Forgotten simply because it's themes, content and style is still too obscure even by todays standards. The movie is a rich myriad of imagery, poetics and emotions which all become thicker and more complex as the movie unfolds.

On the surface, Kiss of the Spider woman, appears as a prison thriller. However what differentiates this movie from other movies of it's genre, is the emotional questions that the movies raises. The movie is a study of moral rights in the modern world. In this movie the two leads are forced to evaluate themselves and rationalise their feelings with one another, this is shown in the way the movie contrasts the politics of the free thinking individual; that being revolution, individual rights of man, people forcing change, with the prejudices of modern society, mainly the modern day fear of homosexuality.

Stylistically the movie is also outstanding, taking an unconventional narrative that mixes the 'dream' with the 'real'. The character of Valentin represents the modern day hero, with his idealism and dreams of change. Where as the character of Luis represents the failed dreams of the individual and the longing for fulfilment.

The Nazi movie that is intertwined within the story, should also merit a comment, as it is through this sub plot where the story is able to ensnare it's audience into a labyrinth like world within a fictitious/mythological past within thirties Europe. The black and white movie, within the movie, 'The kiss of the Spider woman' serves as a continuous reminder of the power of the dream world with that of our everyday reality.

The eighties was a bizarre time for art, there was the prevailing sense of change in the air. With the Cold War coming to an end, there was the popular belief of a new world emerging from the lesson learnt from two world wars. This movie, 'The Kiss of the Spider woman', serves as a cautious warning that mans is a nostalgic yet forgetful beast and that hope of change and the dream of freedom, within a society that is not yet ready to take on all of the social/political dynamics of freedom, remains nothing but a failed romance.

A worthy classic. A movie experience that anyone who loves cinema or is interested in a study of humanity should seek out..

This film, about two thoroughly different souls turning into each other, is one of the all-time greats. The writing is crisp, the acting is phenomenal, and the story is exquisite. I have read the book in both Spanish and English, seen the musical four times, read the script of the play, and watched this movie over and over again... I recommend it to anyone who wants a true powerhouse drama, not a schmaltzy tearjerker.