Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Worst Movie Ever
Once again I must set the record straight (no pun intended). Despite the overwhelming abundance of glowing reviews, Kiss of the Spider Woman for me is the all time leading celluloid drag (no pun intended, really). It is literally the movie both my wife and I use to epitomize the the absolute worst, the bottom of the barrel (npi).
Now I’ll admit it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this movie but there have been very very few movies, after spending spending seven dollars to get in and more in sundries, that I have walked out on but walk out before the end of this loathsome movie, I did.
The Boring Plot
Kiss of the Spider Woman is primarily set in an Argentinian prison cell at some unknown time (probably the sixties). The incarcerated occupants are Luis Molina (William Hurt) an insufferable drag queen and Valentin Arregui (Raul Julia) a firebrand political prisoner who at first is wary of his homosexual cellmate but eventually understands him and finally accepts and befriends him.
At first Molina, who is sometimes seen with makeshift turbans, shawls and other effeminate paraphernalia, merely seeks Valentin’s respect of what he is and his lifestyle, but he is obviously attracted to the virile revolutionary and secretly covets a romantic liaison. Molina weaves his web on Valentin by occasionally entertaining himself and Valentin with his view of old movies, (presented in the movie as flashbacks) one of which is a Nazi propaganda film, which the fanciful queen misinterprets in terms only of romance. These Flashbacks contain Brazilian starlet Sonia Braga who is apparently the namesake of the movie – The Spider Woman.
Credits
Directed by
Hector Babenco
Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Manuel Puig novel
Leonard Schrader
Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting verification
William Hurt …. Luis Molina
Raul Julia …. Valentin Arregui
Sonia Braga …. Leni Lamaison/Marta/Spider Woman
SUMMARY
The word of the day is Boring. What’s that old saying, “like watching grass grow,” this was perhaps the most boring movie I have ever had the mispleasure (is that a word?) to see. Almost all of the acting was dialogue and the dialogue was slow, repetitive, suggestive and full of double entendres, none of which were clever. They exchange ideas of masculinity, of sexuality and politics. The relief from the boredom in the form of the sepia toned flashbacks were confusing, irrelevant and disjointed. Molina’s interpretations of these flashbacks were warped, contrived and self serving.
Yes their are subplots. Molina has been offered freedom in exchange for information from Valentin and Valentin who is slowly being poisoned by his captors is taken out periodically for tortuous interrogations but that still doesn’t save this movie. Overall this movie was a dreadful effort with no redeeming qualities. Final rating, 0 Stars
CONCLUSION
I must confess to a certain amount of ambivalence. Not about the movie itself but whether I should write a review about this abysmal movie in the face of such adoration for this movie by other reviewers and the public in general. It was after all up for several Oscar nominations and William Hurt did walk away with an Oskie for best actor and the acting was indeed good. I have no more idea why so many people loved this movie than why the recent election went the way it did. This is a case of one person’s treasure is another person’s junk or in this case many people’s treasure is one man and wife’s junk and junk it is!
For me it is mind boggling that anyone could like this movie. I know some of you may shrug and think that I’m a homophobe. Well I’m not. One does not have to be a homophobe to not like a movie involving a blatant homosexual any more than you’re a bigot if you didn’t like a movie about blacks or Jews or Whites or whatever. Bad is Bad but if any real homophobes happened to see this movie I’ll bet it reinforced their convoluted view of gays. To them it was probably like waring garlic around a vampire.
Silly Things 