Héctor Babenco’s patient direction lets difficult people earn our sympathy without becoming agreeable. We recommend starting with Kiss of the Spider Woman, where the two leading performances make an unlikely closeness convincing despite some overworked fantasy.
Fi1m perspective
Two men share a cell in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), and Héctor Babenco lets their opinions of each other change slowly. Luis Molina and Valentin Arregui cannot finish an awkward conversation by walking out. Babenco makes that restriction useful: the film gives them time to resist each other without treating either man as a problem to be corrected. It is patient, moving direction, and the actors justify the time he gives them.
His early breakthroughs were Lucio Flavio (1977) and Pixote (1980), the latter centred on abandoned street children in São Paulo. His films often use real locations and non-professional performers, while leaving room for lyrical passages alongside the documentary-style realism. After Kiss of the Spider Woman came the Hollywood productions Ironweed (1987), starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, and At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991). He returned to Brazil for Carandiru (2003), a prison film using former inmates as actors. Confinement and the need for human company remained recurring subjects.
William Hurt and Raúl Juliá make Kiss of the Spider Woman the clearest reason for our regard. Their contrasting performances allow affection to develop without making the earlier resistance seem foolish. The danger in this sort of drama is that each cellmate becomes a lesson provided for the other’s improvement, but Babenco keeps both men difficult. He gives the actors room to suggest feelings their dialogue cannot settle, so a conversation can achieve something without resolving everything.
We were moved by the growing affection because neither man has to become agreeable to deserve it. The fantasy passages are occasionally overworked, and our attention is firmer when the film stays with the two men. Babenco does not need so much elaboration to make this relationship matter. Start here for the performances, with some patience for the fantasies.
Biography
Héctor Babenco was an Argentine-born Brazilian film director, screenwriter and producer. He was born on 7 February 1946 and died on 13 July 2016 in São Paulo.
Babenco began his career in Brazil in the 1970s after time spent in Spain. His early features included Lúcio Flávio (1977) and Pixote (1980). He gained international recognition as director of Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
Later works included Ironweed (1987), At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) and Carandiru (2003). He directed in Argentina, Brazil and the United States, often focusing on marginalised characters.
