Babenco's jack pot in Hollywood was the death of his Oscar career.So what?Against the norms of studio decisions,Babenco controlled a subject truly remarkable and whoever thinks love and passion was a revolution in Brokeback Mountain,this is the real deal,the deserted souls.A fragmentary relationship gives the opportunity to Julia and Hurt to deliver exceptional interpretation of two incarcerated figures.What is fantasy constitutes the unacceptable and yet..so enticingly lustful.A memorable 80's film,different in structure and depth.
My reasons for watching this are nerdy to the point of being pathetic. A few years back I decided it was a worthwhile goal to see every movie to get a best Picture nomination since the seventies. I went ahead and did this, but one movie prevented me from this goal, Kiss of the Spider Woman, which hadn?t been released on DVD until now. If anything, what I?ve learned from this experiment is that Oscar nomination lists are an iffy guide to finding good movies. Some of the also-rans actually did turn out to be worthy films that had been forgotten over the years, others were not. If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn?t have bothered, but with only this and one other film films left (still waiting for a DVD of 1972?s The Emigrants) I might as well finish what I started. This was an interesting movie about a friendship that forms between a homosexual and a revolutionary over time while they are locked together in a Brazilian prison during that country?s dirty war. Between this, The Official Story and the movie Missing, it?s clear that Latin American dirty wars were a hot button issue in 1980s Hollywood prestige movies. I thought William Hurt?s homosexual character seemed like a pretty broad stereotype, but his presence as a sympathetic character in a Hollywood movie was probably a progressive step at the time. Raul Julia was quite good here; he?s the one who probably should have gotten the award. The movie is quite obviously based on a play, and it?s very claustrophobic because of it. The whole thing is more of an artifact to me than an engaging movie, but it was fine I guess.
an interesting film with two great performances about love and the transcendental power of storytelling. it had a few clumsy moments but overall its greater than the sum of its parts.
An effeminite man and a political rebel are placed in the same South American prison cell. The gay man spends the time telling the story of a movie he once saw and loved. An intriguing tale is woven both in the movie and in the gay man's stories!
Yillar once izlemistim. William Hurt'un en iyi performansi diyebilirim. Tekrar izlemek istiyorum ama iyi bir release bir de Turkce alt yazisi olsa!.. :(
A wonderful, heartbreaking movie. I bought this on video as a pretentious mid-teenager and I still love it as a pretentious thirtysomething. Perhaps not the greatest prison movie ever made but surely the most moving. William Hurt and Raul Julia are simply magnificent as polar opposites who strike up an unlikely friendship in a Latin American prison cell: the former a homosexual caught soliciting a minor, the latter an angry and torture-weary political prisoner. The final scene, which plays out as the credits roll, is so beautiful, yet bittersweet because we know the escape from pain is both illusory and only temporary.
I have seen this first in a play. It was interestingly hilarious.
Many years after, I got the chance to see the film and I could not believe how even more interesting the original story is.
The actors were 2 of my many favorites and they were perfect. I particularly like the concept. Its a battle between so many different things. Contrasts between different issues.
.. great movie , based on great book ...the film was very good ,but in mind there is all the time is a quote from the book ...A mind full of saints and sluts..a hand throw the head in the wall , like a crystal ball , and all these are free...
Set off in some Latin prison this movie is fantastic. An anything but unassuming white homosexual delicately nurturing and caring for a freshly beaten gorilla rebel intertwine with a sexual tension that bleeds thru each others thoughts and actions. a love story, suspense bound and ploted very very well 10 thumbs up . Ya gotta see it.
A wonderful story between Raul Julia and William Hurt....how a bearded revolutionary and a gay man become friends in prison by telling each other stories.
i hadnt watched a movie like this before and was impressed with willian hurt...raul julia was good as well as i only really seen him b4 in the addams family lol
This is a very engaging tale about two men who become lovers while sharing a prison cell together. the catch here is one is straight and the other is a spy.
A heart warming film about 2 lost souls that happen to meet together in a cramp cell. Nothing gay about the show. It's just two men who made use of their time to share about what goes on in each one's life.
MCT:June 2, 2008
MCT:October 3, 2008
MCT:September 18, 2008
MCT:September 9, 2008
MCT:August 17, 2008
MCT:April 10, 2008
