Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

Directed by Héctor Babenco. Starring William Hurt, Raúl Juliá, Sônia Braga, José Lewgoy, Milton Gonçalves, Herson Capri, Nuno Leal Maia, Denise Dumont, Fernando Torres. [R]

Examination of the prisons of the mind and the flesh through the complex relationship that forms between cellmates in a Brazilian prison. One (Juliá) is a political prisoner associated with leftist revolutionaries, the other (Hurt) is a homosexual “deplorable” who had sexual relations with an underage boy. As fascinating as it is challenging, with bracing lead performances that sidestep mannered calculation so narrowly that one’s opinion may change multiple times while watching, but the political content is too cautious in its anonymity (an argument could be made that this decision elicits a universal portrait of oppression, but the absence negatively affects each man’s personal burden). Intercut with imagined melodramas featuring Braga in different roles that include the enigmatic title character; her stiff, phonetic portrayals work precisely because they don’t exist in a recognizable reality. Hurt won Best Actor at the Academy Awards, the first time someone won for playing an openly gay character. Screenplay by Leonard Schrader from Manuel Puig’s celebrated novel.

78/100