# Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

### reviewed by
Brian Koller

    Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

    Grade: 90

Department of remarkable coincidences: of the four films that Sonia Braga and Raul Julia have both appeared in, in three of them they both received Golden Globe nominations, while not receiving any Academy Award nominations. "Moon over Parador" was over-rated, while "The Burning Season" was made for TV. There are no such excuses for an Oscar snub for "Kiss of the Spider Woman". While William Hurt received his only Best Actor Oscar, Raul Julia gives an equally outstanding performance.

Of course, Hurt had the more challenging role. He plays a homosexual who fantasizes about being a glamorous woman, while imprisoned in an South American country for 'corrupting' a minor. His cellmate is political prisoner Raul Julia, who is devoted almost completely to his cause of overthrowing the despotic government.

At first, Julia detests his effeminate, flirtatious cellmate, who insists on retelling and embellishing a Nazi propaganda film that he once saw. (This film stars Braga, who also plays Julia's lover.) However, Hurt's kindness to Julia gradually leads to their friendship.

Hurt was well cast. His facial expressions are perfect for conveying the deeply felt emotions of his character, and never falls into the easy trap of making the role campy. Julia's rage and despair are also well delivered, and there are strong supporting performances by Jose Lewgoy and Milton Goncalves, who play malevolent government agents.

"Kiss of the Spider Woman" also received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Hector Babenco), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Leonard Schrader).

kollers@mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews