A kiss of originality in 'Spiderwoman' tale
1985Paul Siegel 1985-11Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 19 →
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18 SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1985 The Kiss of the Spiderwoman, released by Island Alive, 1985.
"The Kiss of the Spiderwoman" is a superb film. Based on a novel by the Argentinian writer 1 Manuel Puig, directed by Hector Babenco (the director of the excellent Brazilian film "Pixote"), and beautifully acted by Raul Julia and William Hurt, it is both original and profound.
Two men, a revolutionist and a homosexual, share a prison cell of the Brazilian dictatorship. Molina, the homosexual, cares nothing about politics. He is solely concerned with escaping from utter loneliness by finding a man whom he can love and who can love him.
Valentin, the revolutionist, on the other hand, gave up a beautiful, intelligent, upper-class woman with whom he was in love, because he would not forsake the movement.
To while away the time, Molina narrates and acts out one of the Nazi propaganda films exported to Latin America during World War II. In it a sultry French cabaret singer falls in love with a Nazi intelligence officer opposing the Resistance.
Through him the singer learns of the nobleness of the Nazi cause-which is seeking to build a new order that will rectify the world's wrongs. This film within a film, needless to say, is as absurdly false in its staginess as in its politics.
For Molina, however, it is significant as a melodramatic story of love. He identifies with the heroine in her passion for the handsome, blond Nazi officer.
Valentin indignantly asks if Molina doesn't know that the Nazis gassed homosexuals. "Of course, replies Molina. "I'm not that dumb a broad." The reply reveals both his self-centeredness and his self-contempt.
Valentin tells him that his escaping into fantasy makes his life as trivial as the movies of which he is fond. For Molina, however, Valentin's vision of a distant revolution is itself fantasy and his self-denial for the sake of this revolution is folly.
"A real man"
Each, however, affects the other. Molina, coming to appreciate Valentin's nobility, falls in love with him. All of his life he has been searching for a "real man."
When Valentin defines a "real man" as one who won't accept indignities from those who are powerful and who won't inflict indignities on those less fortunate than he, Molina-accustomed to the scorn of others-finds his "real man" in Valentin.
Valentin is touched by Molina's kindness to him in his illness. He comes to be more understanding of him and also to face up to his own suppressed desires to give up the fight.
Valentin says that his lover was right when she asked him to desert the movement. But, he asks, how could he have Raul Julia (left) and William Hurt (right) Spiderwoman. "
done so when his friends were being captured every day? What for others would be reason to desert is for him—in his unassuming heroism-reason to stay.
Valentin resembles the stereotyped Resistance fighters of the Nazi propaganda film that Molina describes. But he is a real human being.
The ring of truth "The Kiss of the Spiderwoman" has a remarkable authenticity that contrasts with the film contained within it. It does have a number of unobtrusive parallels, however.
At the conclusion Molina, released from prison, obeys