Film

Rip It Up, Issue 103, 1 February 1986, Page 8

Film

KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN Director: Hector Babenco _Two men share a cell in a South American gaol. Arregui (Raul Julia) is a tough and embittered Marxist whilst his companion Molina (William Hurt) is a prissy, effeminate homosexual. The clash between their two personalities is the pivot around which Babenco has fashioned this study of obsession, illusion and layalty.

‘The director made’ his mark in 1981 with the startling Pixote, its Sao Paulo reform school providing a microcosm of the more general Brazilian corruption. Kiss of the Spider Woman is set in an unidentified Latin American country, much of the action taking place within the men’s prison cell. The political oppression and violence of the outside world is revealed through the beatings and tortures administered by the prison authorities.

The claustrophobia of Spider Woman is inescapable. As in the original novel by Manuel Puig, itis the couple’s verbal sparring match which provides the main momentum of the film. But claustrophobia is more than merely being trapped within the four walls of a prison cell. Arregui and Molina are caught within the limitations of

their attitudes and lifestyles: their passionate truce at the end of the film being all the more ironic when one considers the various betrayals that provide the undercurrent for the film. The structure of the movie is an unusual one: the prison dialogues are punctuated with scenes from imaginary 1940 s movies — the realisation of Molina’s obsessional recounting of melodramatic film scenarios. The films-within-a-film provide an eerie parallel to the present situation of the two men and Sonia Braga's extremely arch playing as Leni Lamaison, the French cabaret singer caught between the Nazis and French resistance, is the perfect compliment to Molina's resolutely campy turn-of-phrase (“her petite ankle slips into the perfumed water” is one specimen).

The shock of the final moment of violence is considerable and much of the credit goes to William Hurt’s superb performance as Molina, a performance that won him the Best Actor’s Award at last year’s Cannes festival. Unexpected casting for Hurt (his previous films have been Russel’s Altered States and Kasdan's The Big Chill), he plays Molina with a fierce intelligence and admirable control, easily manipulating the audience’s sympathies through his expert development of the character over the course of the film. Despite our initial misgivings, we end up feeling for this window-dresser drawn

_against his will into a web of political intrigue, finally attaining his own sort of nobility. ' AGNES OF GOD Director: Norman Jewison Things have not been the same at the convent since Mother |gnatius told it all ... John Pielmeier’s original Broadway play Agnes of God played with the dualities of mystery and mysticism. Agnes, a young novitiate (Meg Tilly in the film) is investigated by forensic psychiatrist Martha Livingstone (Jane Fonda) for her part in the murder of a new-born child in the convent. Fonda struggles on stoically, in spite of the protestations and obstructions put up by Anne Bancroft’s Mother Miriam Ruth, a distinctly Jewish Momma Superior, and one who can kvetch with the best of them (“Dr Livingstone, I refuse,” she gips to Fonda at one point in the film). 2 - The original play was written for these characters alone, using the one set, and it worked as a dramatic piece of some intensity. Now, radically opened up with scenes in barns, towers, courtrooms, it loses a lot of its former concentration. The move to Quebec seems to provide little purpose except to provide Sven Nykvist, Bergman's cameraman, with the opportunity for some rivetting images. : - Jewison is still unable to resist the lure of pure corn — a shot of the sun bursting out from behind

the clouds after Agnes's confession or Jane Fonda's final wrap-up voice-over at the end-of the film. The performances of the three actresses are what remain with one after the final credits. Not so much Jane Fonda taking her usual earnest stance, but rather Bancroft's bristling energy and mercurial mood changes as Mother Miriam Ruth and the glowing truth that Meg Tilly gives to the central role of Agnes. : : ‘ WHITE NIGHTS Director: Taylor Hackford While one might almost forgive the embarrassing anti-Russian philosophies of Rambo, with its comic-book, outrageously biased approach to its subject matter, it is considerably less easy to accept the same sentiments in Hackford's new movie, dressed up with lashings of “culture” and a syrupy Lionel Ritchie theme song. Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines are, in their respective fields, superb dancers, yet White Nights gives them but little opportunity to display their talents in this area. By the same token, Geraldine Page and Helen Mirren are stylish actresses and yet the material given to them on this occasion is negligible to say the least. The lachrymose Isabella Rossellini takes far too much of the screen time and it is hard to believe what persuaded the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski to play the heavy of the piece — the

suave Colonel Chaiko. But, political issues aside, together with the criminal misuse of so many talents (cinematographer David ‘Watkin and choreographer Twyla Tharp can be added to this list), a film which has some pretensions to being a thriller could well afford to have at least half and hour trimmed off its quite excessive running time. WILLIAM DART

Banzai’s “over-thruster” to break back into the Bth dimension.

Banzai and the Cavaliers fight the aliens and save the world. Lots of other things happen to make this one hell of a wild ride through the mind of a Hollywood scriptwriter. - Warning: Don't drink or take

drugs before watching.

KB