Magical realism gets the cinematic treatment in Kiss of the Spider Woman. This adaptation of Manuel Puig's novel feels its two-hour runtime. I also wonder if its Oscar-winning performance has aged well in these forty years. However, it does have a strong conclusion that makes it worth at least one viewing.
There are two polar opposite political detainees in a Brazilian prison. One is Valentin Arregui (Raul Julia), a committed revolutionary. The other Luis Molina (William Hurt), an openly and flamboyantly gay man. The dictatorship has locked both of them up for their actions. Valentin is not thrilled to be sharing his cell with Molina (the former refers to the latter by his surname while the latter uses the former's first name).
Valentin is committed to the revolution. Molina is apolitical. To combat their boredom, Molina recounts one of his favorite movies, unaware that it is a Nazi propaganda film. In the various sepia-toned reenactments, we see that this faux-film is about a doomed love. Beautiful French chanteuse Leni Lamaison (Sonia Braga) is not thrilled to see Paris under German occupation, but she is not involved in the Resistance. Her friend Michelle (Denise Dummont) has simultaneously fallen in love with a German soldier who has knocked her up and worked with the Resistance. Leni wants to help, but Michelle is killed by the Resistance. Complicating matters is how Leni herself has fallen in love with Werner (Herson Capri), head of Nazi intelligence.
Despite their disparate backgrounds, eventually Valentin and Molina become friends. Valentin shares parts of his life. While he talks of Lydia, he reveals that this is not his true love (probably a fellow revolutionary to keep his torturers off the track). Instead, he talks of the last time he saw the beautiful Marta (Braga in the second of three roles). Valentin, though, is unaware that Molina is playing him. The warden (Jose Lewgoy) and his flunky Pedro (Milton Goncalves) have promised Molina early parole if he can get information from Valentin to give to them. Molina uses this to his advantage to get food delivered to him. He is also desperate to see his ill mother (Miriam Pires) once more. Molina also gives Valentin snippets of a second film once he finishes talking about the first. It is another love story set on a mysterious island ruled by a Spider Woman (Braga in her third role).
To both their surprise, Molina has been granted parole despite Molina's limited success with Valentin. They also share one night of love before Molina goes. Before he leaves, Valentin gives Molina a phone number to contact his fellow revolutionaries. Molina reluctantly accepts the number. He now returns to his mother. He reunites with his gay friends. He is also pretty much a recluse, frustrating Pedro who has been following him. Pedro hopes that Molina will lead them, unwittingly, to Valentin's fellow revolutionaries. Once Molina does finally make contact, the lives of Molina and Valentin will perhaps meet the same fate though in different circumstances.
If Kiss of the Spider Woman is remembered at all, it is probably mostly due to that Hurt win. Even now, I do not know how that win will look to contemporary audiences. Here is a straight actor playing not just a gay man, but a flamboyantly gay man. Add to that how William Hurt, as an American, is playing a Brazilian. If modern audiences find straight actors playing gay roles objectionable, they find Anglo actors playing Latino roles doubly so. In today's parlance, William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman and his Best Actor Oscar win for the film has not aged well.
This is not the time nor place to say whether or not William Hurt deserved the Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman. It is the time and place to talk about his performance. It was pretty solid, the early scenes of a slightly exaggerated manner notwithstanding. Over time, Hurt seemed to tone down Molina's flamboyance into something more restrained. He has a wonderful, quiet moment when he says his goodbye to his sleeping mother. I suspect that this scene was what won Academy members over. He also has a very moving moment at the end when he sees that he will not make it out of Brazil's chaotic political scene. Here is Molina, so unaware of politics that he did not realize that the romantic movie he loved was Nazi propaganda, done in by essentially his own ignorance of the world. I think, in retrospect, it might have been a bit too quiet, but it was a good performance.
William Hurt, to his credit, stated that he shared the Oscar with Raul Julia. He was correct in his analysis. Julia holds his own as Valentin, the revolutionary who eventually warms to his cellmate. Julia did not rant and rave political diatribes in Kiss of the Spider Woman. Instead, while Valentin was passionate about politics, he was also a man. He did not want to hear parts of the story that involved food or sex, two things that he wanted and could not get. Julia, however, also showed that warming towards Molina. He displays commitment, regret and acceptance, a man who does not break under difficult conditions. It is a showcase for Raul Julia's skills as an actor.
Sonia Braga is someone who is not spoken of often. Here, she had three roles. She was Marta, Raul's mistress. She was Leni, the exaggerated character in Molina's film. She was the Spider Woman, who ends up leading Valentin to a paradise. Braga was most realistic in her one scene as Marta, the woman who loves Valentin but knows that his commitment to the cause is greater than his commitment to her.
Braga was appropriately exaggerated as Leni. The entire faux film, complete with its sepia tones, was meant to be exaggerated and overly dramatic. She was not on screen long enough as the Spider Woman to make an impact. However, she played all three roles correctly.
I get that these scenes were meant to be broad. I get that the ending was meant to be on the fantastical side. One is left to decide for him/herself if Valentin died or was dreaming that Marta/the Spider Woman came to him. However, it again seemed to come from a whole other film versus staying within the world of Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Leonard Schrader's adaptation of the novel clearly draws parallels between the faux movies and Valentin/Molina's current situation. Again, I get that such a thing was the film's intention. It does, however, lend itself to the idea that the movie never existed but was Molina's efforts to draw Valentin into trusting him. I get that director Hector Babenco was adding moments of magical realism into the film. You had the counter of Molina's film with the serious negotiations between Molina and the Warden. However, it did not fully work for me.
I think the hardest part of Kiss of the Spider Woman is its two-hour runtime. I felt every minute of it. The entire subplot in the fake movie about Christine's pregnancy and doomed romance, I think, could have been cut. Parts of that overall faux flick could have been done away with too. It does take away from the main story to keep up the pretense of the fake film.
I also think that some audiences will find the deliberate shift from the natural look in the prison to the sepia toned ways of the fake film a bit hard to accept. I know that it was a directorial choice to show the difference. I just do not think that both the sepia tones and the deliberately exaggerated acting manner helped make Kiss of the Spider Woman better.
It is, I think, a safe bet that both Kiss of the Spider Woman and William Hurt's Oscar winning performances has faded from view. It is not to say that either or both are not worth seeing at all. I just think that it may have all been a bit much, especially now. While nowhere near terrible, I cannot mount a Kiss of the Spider Woman revival.
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