Konterr Brilliant and touching

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Sameir Ali The first indie movie to be Oscar nominated for the Best Movie.A gay and a political prisoner are in a prison. Gay narrates the story of an imaginary movie to the other, in spite his bad interest. He narrates the stories of two different movies mixed with his own life story. The story narration soon becomes a medicine for their loneliness, sadness and pain.To create a beautiful movie within the limitations of space, and budget is almost impossible. Only a creative director can make it possible.William Hurt has given one his best character of his career. As the movie was running out of budget, he refused to receive the pay. He received the Academy Award for the best Actor for his role.

Jackson Booth-Millard When I found this title in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die I assumed it was some sort of dark crime or psychological thriller, that is not what it was at all, but I memorised that the leading actor won the Academy Award, so I was always going to watch it. Basically in Brazil, set during the Brazilian military government, in a prison cell are two unlikely cell mates, Valentin Arregui (The Addams Family's Golden Globe nominated Raul Julia) who is imprisoned (and has been tortured) due to his activities on behalf of a leftist revolutionary group, and homosexual Luis Molina (Oscar and BAFTA winning, and Golden Globe nominated William Hurt) who is imprisoned for having sex with an underage boy. Molina passes the time recounting memories from one of his favourite films, a wartime romantic thriller, also a Nazi propaganda film, he weaves the characters into a narrative meant to comfort Arregui and distract him from the harsh realities of political imprisonment and the separation from his lover Marta (Golden Globe nominated Sonia Braga). Through telling him this Molina finds Arregui slowly lessening his defensive side and opening up, as the story unfolds it is obvious that the jailers are poisoning Arregui so he will befriend Molina, who is a spy for Brazilian secret police, they want information obtained to find the revolutionary group's members, if Molina succeeds he will be granted parole. Molina falls in love with Arregui, he eventually responds and they make physical consummation of their love on Molina's last night in prison, he is granted parole in the hopes that his cell mate will reveal information about his contacts when he knows he will be out of prison, Molina first refuses to take a telephone number and message for the comrades when Arregui provides them, but he relents, they share a farewell kiss. The last scenes see Molina calling the number, with a meeting arranged with the revolutionary group, but the secret police have him under surveillance, eventually a gun battle occurs, with Molina shot by the revolutionaries, they assumed he has betrayed him. Molina wanders the streets wounded, the police catch up with him and demand he discloses the telephone number in exchange for them taking to hospital for treatment, he refuses, succumbs to his wounds and dies, the homophobic police chief Pedro (Milton Gonçalves) orders Molina's body be dumped in a rubbish pit and a story fabricated about his death and his involvement with the revolutionary group. Back in the prison Arregui has once again been tortured and is being treated, the doctor, risking his job in the process, injects him with morphine to help him sleep, in his dreams Arregui is able to escape to a tropical island to reunite with Marta. Also starring Sonia Braga as Leni Lamaison and the Spider Woman (of the title, from one of the stories Molina tells) José Lewgoy as Warden, Nuno Leal Maia as Gabriel, Antônio Petrin as Clubfoot and Denise Dummont a Michele. Hurt definitely deserved his Oscar for playing a wonderfully flamboyant gay man, Julia is equally fantastic as his reactionary political prisoner cell mate, together as the pair sharing a cell in a South American jail they really convince you of their growing friendship and further affectionate relationship with each other. The film is all about the two men in their cell and their interactions, mixed with some political subtext, but it also fantastically mixes the harsh squalid reality of prison life with the juxtaposed dream-like monochrome fantasy world imagined by the stories lovingly told by the leading gay character, it is a terrific drama film. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director for Hector Babenco (Ironweed) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, and it was nominated the Golden Globe Best Motion Picture - Drama. Very good!

abhiclash I had this movie with me for a long time but I just wasn't really attracted by its name or poster whatever. I watched it today and was I glad I did. Those who hate this film , they misunderstand it as being a disappointment in the screenplay but I guess they don't understand that it's a William Hurt centric film as Luis Molina as a homosexual guy having a persona of a woman(his crying and giggle as a delicate woman is terrific) imprisoned and forms an unlikely friendship with his cell-mate. I love Taxi Driver for its character study and this film is not far behind. A well made character study. Must watch for those who crave for performances.

classicalsteve "Kiss of the Spider Woman" is not your typical film. Similar to the novel of the same name which was banned in Buenos Aires for many years, "Spider Woman" is a non-linear story which begins as a character study of two polar opposites who are reluctant prison-mates in a Brazilian prison. William Hurt offers a stellar performance for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor as Molina, a troubled homosexual who also exhibits transsexual tendencies. His prison-mate is Valentin, a journalist who entered into an underground political movement and was incarcerated as a political prison. By contrast, Molina's crime was engaging in a sexual relationship with a boy.The film begins with Hurt's voice-over as Molina while the camera pans above the hideous accommodations of the prison cell. The voice describes a character and a scene from an old romantic European movie probably made in the 1930's. For emphasis, Molina donning a decorated sheet drapes a towel over his head, re-enacting the scene of the heroine putting on her towel after a bath like a turban. The film then cuts to the actual film being described showing a dark-haired actress who appears like a cross between Gloria Swanson and Marlene Dietrich. We are now in the middle of a bygone era of glamorous film. The film in the present-moment is in color while the movie being described is in black and white, often using soft focuses and soft lighting for romantic effect. On several occasions, the present-moment story is halted and the older film is shown on-screen. One of the interesting contrasts is how the older movie exhibits plush settings, beautiful costumes, and attractive leads. The real setting of the prison is damp, dirty and just about as unromantic as a slimy villain.During different moments, Valentin snaps at Molina, occasionally puzzled and sometimes infuriated with Molina's simplistic view of reality which seems caught up in these old movies. At one point during one of Molina's movie descriptions, Valentin realizes the movie is some kind of Nazi propaganda film. There are resisters to the Nazi regime who are portrayed as less-than-human conniving degenerates. However, Molina is oblivious to this aspect, simply caught up with the heroine and her lover, Werner, a member of the Nazi high command. Molina cares nothing about the film's rhetoric but only the romantic interests and identifies strongly with the female lead. Several times he admonishes Valentin for "ruining the moment" with his political talk. One of the elements which makes the story interesting is the parallel between Valentin's predicament as a political prisoner and the film described by Molina which has fascist overtones.Much of the film is about the relationship between the prison-mates as much as a character study. Occasionally their relationship is strained and escalates into near-violent confrontation as Valentin finds superficiality with his prison-mate who is constantly moving and gesturing like the opposite sex. At one point, Valentin rages at him "You sound just like a...!" to which Molina responds "Say it, just like a woman." But over time, a strange friendship of mutual trust and respect evolves between the two men, and Valentin finds there is more to Molina than at first meets the eye.A very different and interesting film with absolute first-rate performances by the two leads but not for all tastes and certainly not for those uninterested in material which explores homosexuality. Part of the film's rhetoric is about showing aspects of homosexual sensibility. Valentin begins to learn and at one point appreciate his prison-mate's sexual dilemma. Part of Molina's ultimate quandary is that he is more than a homosexual: he feels much like a member of the female sex and longs for a "real man", not just a homosexual male. But "real men", by Molina's definition, want real women, and he can never satisfy this desire. So he escapes into romantic films and pretends he is the star.