Review of Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) by Afzal S — 13 Jun 2008

An unlikely Oscar contender, Kiss of the Spider Woman was nominated for best film, director, screenplay, and won best actor (for Wlliam Hurt) at the Academy Awards in 1986.

This is something to celebrate in light of more usual, banal Oscar Contenders (Titanic, Forest Gump, etc.). For Kiss of the Spider Woman is an offbeat, even bizarre film that may seem at first a worthy but miscalculated failure. While there is some fairness in such a view- the film is arty and overblown (and its view of homosexuality is open to charges of being old-fashioned)- there is yet something so brave and beguilling about it.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is rather like Brazil in some ways, Terry Gilliam's film made in the same year, particularly in its examination of dream and fantasy as weapons against Totalitarianism. Kiss of the Spider Woman is not as funny or as page-turning as Brazil. But on the other hand, the feyness of Brazil's sci-fi other-world indicates Gilliam's archness and lack of worldliness. Hector Babenco does not flinch in planting the roots of Kiss of the Spider Woman in the dirt of regional right-wing South America, leaving the viewer with the feeling that it has been informed by a genuine experience of its socio-political context.

Moreover, in Brazil, Gilliam displays his tendency to lose control of his fantasy and let it run riot. But Babenco interweaves fantasy and realism so skilfully and with such control, the fantasy reflects on the 'reality' and becomes more lucid and poignant as the film (eventually) unfolds.