One Cell of a Film

Given Hollywood's current taste for Spielbergian light-and magic shows, an "actor's movie" is a dying breed. But in Kiss of the Spider Woman, a film mixing the dangerous ingredients of politics and movie glamour itself, the actors' contributions are paramount.

In plot terms Spider Woman, directed by Brazilian filmmaker Hector Babenco (Pixote), is a movie about the relationship between two men, a homosexual and a political revolutionary, thrown together in a prison cell in some unnamed South American country.

But Babenco (adapting Manuel Puig's novel) attempts more than a sensitive study about the burgeoning of one off-beat friendship. He sets his sights on the giddy interplay between fantasy and fact, with the premise that escapism is indispensable to a psychologically sound existence.

William Hurt is Molina, a homosexual window dresser in his 30's sentenced to eight years with no parole for "corrupting a minor"; his cellmate, Valentin, played by Raul Julia, is a political prisoner held without trial and frequently tortured to disclose the names of his fellow Marxist rebels.

It would be facile merely to agree Hurt is outstanding in his part. His performance is central to the film--it's all about the taking of chances. Molina is a risky role, and one Hurt could easily have blown. Instead, with a Best Actor award at Cannes for his effort, as well as the near-unanimous praise of domestic critics, it appears he is a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination come February.

But serious problems with his role still remain. On the plus side, he never plays down to Molina; even at the beginning, sporting the makeup of an old whore, speaking his lines deliberately with slow, self-indulgent relish, Hurt never minces and he never seems embarrassed.

Physically, though, he seems out of place, too big and awkward for Molina's refined sensibility. And what's this Yankee-manque doing in South America anyway? You keep expecting someone to translate his dialogue. Hurt as the "queen" appears studied: he doesn't let you forget the effort his technique requires.

That is the least of his worries, however. Where the movie seems thinnest is in its symbolic attempt to weld Hurt's stagey character to Babenco's overriding theme about cinema as a kind of mental panacea.

While in prison, Molina diverts Valentin, who is stingy with his pleasures (a stereotypical Marxist?), by recounting scenes from a Nazi propaganda film. These sepia-toned passages tell the preposterous tale of a French nightclub singer (Sonia Braga) meeting and loving a ranking SS commandant and are intended to showcase the salvation that is the movie theater--a promising motif. Unfortunately, the film-within-the-film is a let-down, unamusing to all.

Yet the offensive subject matter doesn't bother Molina, who protests something like, "I hate politics, but I love the leading man"--in other words, fantasy's healing power is in the spellbinding, not in the political message. By acting out the parts in the gloom of his darkened cell for his initially reluctant cell-mate, Molina saves his sanity and helps break the ice with Valentin--proof positive of fantasy's rich payoff for reality. As with Spielbergism, style subordinates content for our protagonist.

Believable for someone as attuned to injustice as Molina? Not really, but then it's the sentiment he's after--he hasn't yet been converted to consciousness by the Marxist.

Spider Woman turns on Molina's love for Valentin. Without giving too much away, the pair's involvement results in a kind of personality transfer. Molina, upon release from prison, sheds his early effiminate ways to become a classical hero, sacrificing himself for the ideals of his friend. Valentin drifts off into fantasy, easing the pain of another police beating by dreaming of a deserted island and his girlfriend.

Molina's selfless behavior in doing a favor for Valentin and his cadre of revolutionaries rings partially true as another example of romantic posturing. But his pitiful end seems inconsistent with the elevated claim Babenco has made throughout for fantasy. Does hanging onto our dreams make us, finally, irrelevant? Molina's final sacrifice is supposed to prove his redemption; just as his leaving home is supposed to indicate newfound maturity. Unfortunately this sort of pandering to what conventional audiences expect in a hero undermines Molina's integrity.

So much for courageous filmmaking. Kiss of the Spider Woman deserves credit for trying, though, and for the affecting chemistry between Hurt and Julia. It fails in trying to overglamorize the pair's love; it does not appear convincingly sufficient to cause Molina's turnaround upon leaving prison.

But compared to average cinematic fare--even this fall's rash of "serious films" like Wetherby, Plenty and Dance with a Stranger--this is substantial stuff. Kiss of the Spider Woman spins a mean web indeed.