Review of Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) by Eric B — 17 Sep 2008

My reasons for watching this are nerdy to the point of being pathetic. A few years back I decided it was a worthwhile goal to see every movie to get a best Picture nomination since the seventies. I went ahead and did this, but one movie prevented me from this goal, Kiss of the Spider Woman, which hadn?t been released on DVD until now.

If anything, what I?ve learned from this experiment is that Oscar nomination lists are an iffy guide to finding good movies. Some of the also-rans actually did turn out to be worthy films that had been forgotten over the years, others were not.

If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn?t have bothered, but with only this and one other film films left (still waiting for a DVD of 1972?s The Emigrants) I might as well finish what I started.

This was an interesting movie about a friendship that forms between a homosexual and a revolutionary over time while they are locked together in a Brazilian prison during that country?s dirty war. Between this, The Official Story and the movie Missing, it?s clear that Latin American dirty wars were a hot button issue in 1980s Hollywood prestige movies.

I thought William Hurt?s homosexual character seemed like a pretty broad stereotype, but his presence as a sympathetic character in a Hollywood movie was probably a progressive step at the time. Raul Julia was quite good here; he?s the one who probably should have gotten the award.

The movie is quite obviously based on a play, and it?s very claustrophobic because of it. The whole thing is more of an artifact to me than an engaging movie, but it was fine I guess.