Manuel. Puig, a forgotten writer, however, is the "muse" of many filmmakers and writers. Wong Kar-wai once said, "At this point, it is he who has had the greatest influence on my filmmaking (Manuel. Puig). Yan Geling recalled that the first movie she watched was "The Kiss of the Spider Woman", and later she read the original book and read the biography of Puig, so this novel, she shed tears for a long time.
Although forgotten, in the history of South American literature, Manuel. Puig remains a heavyweight writer. Talking about High Court. Before Babbank's film of the same name, Spider-Woman's Kiss, let's talk about Manuel. Puig. Because I think that when we read Latin American magic realism works, there is no exception for Garcia. Márquez, Mario. Llosa, Juan. Rulf and other writers when Manuel. Puig should also appear on the shelves.
Manuel. Puig is a representative of the "post-explosion" period of South American literature, known as the "explosion" period of South American literature in the 1950s and 1960s, and after entering the 1970s, the "explosion" residual temperature is temporarily preserved. At this time, Manuel, who was born in 1932, was born in 1932. Puig entered the field of vision.
In the mid-sixties, Manuel. Puig began writing literature, and in the late sixties he published his debut novel, Rita. Haywards' Betrayal". Two years later, in 1970, Rita. Haywards' Betrayal made it onto the New York Times book sales bestseller list. Six years later, Puig's "Kiss of the Spider Woman" came out, which established Puig's position in the literary world and became the reader's understanding of Manuel. A window into the world of Puig literature.
Spider-Woman's Kiss takes place in a prison in Buenos Aires, where political prisoner Valentine and gay Molina share a cell. They have different interests, different ideals, different lives, and through getting along day and night, a subtle and complex emotion has arisen between the two. Each of them told their own stories and visions, which linked the social pathways and psychological dilemmas of Argentina at that time.
From novel to movie, what I feel most deeply about "Kiss of the Spider-Woman" is the oscillation between the dilemma of the individual and the possibility of the ideal. Pushing it to all sentient beings, this is actually the reality that each of us is facing. Despite different times, different histories, and different encounters, "Kiss of the Spider Woman" is like a fable with a postmodern charm, revealing the worldly fate that human beings cannot escape.
Spider-Woman's Kiss is set in Argentina in the seventies, when Argentina was ruled by a military junta that ,between 1976 and 1983 ruled out dissidents by waging "dirty wars," resulting in tens of thousands of people "disappearing." This history, which took place in the shadow of dictatorship, is Argentina's darkest memory.
Social unrest, political chaos, and homosexuality were all extremely sensitive topics at the time, according to Manuel. Puig created Spider Woman's Kiss in this environment. As a well-structured postmodernist novel, Manuel. In his works, Puig expresses his sympathy and understanding for homosexuals, while also presenting the repressive situation of the individual under dictatorship.
In 1985, the Argentine director Heccote Babbank brought the film to the screen. Born in Buenos Aires, Hecott. Babank was one of the leading figures in the post-"Brazilian New Cinema", and in more than thirty years from film, Heccote. Babbank is committed to using images to explore the contradictions and conflicts in social life, literature, and ideas.
In a realistic sense, Manuel. Puig and Hecott. Buckbank has many similarities:
They all make politics, power, sex, and gender the central themes of the film;
They all use the social environment as the background of the work, so as to complete their own thinking and accusations;
They are all good at capturing fragments of history, using personal destiny as a foothold to complete the narrative structure of small and large.
I prefer to go into Spider-Woman's Kiss from the movies, because after the novel was adapted into a movie, director Hecott Scott. Babbank intensified his critique of mainstream ideology, giving Spider-Woman's Kiss a deeper relevance.
In Kiss of the Spider-Woman, we can have three different spaces, the first is the realistic space in which the characters are located, the second is the cinematic (imaginary) space described by Molina, and the third is the spiritual space of the characters. Three different spaces are intertwined, breaking the spatial limitations in traditional film narratives and creating a psychological space with infinite malleability inside the enclosed space.
In these different spaces, we see the real dilemmas faced by the characters:
Realistic space: The revolutionary Valentine is arrested and imprisoned, and the revolutionary ideal is not yet completed, on the one hand, to protect his comrades-in-arms, on the other hand, to prepare new plans. The gay Molina has been looking for love, but his identity is not accepted by the world, and he can only live in every inch.
Cinematic (imaginary) space: Through Molina's mouth, the director cleverly shows the coldness of "dictatorship". Thus affirming the significance and value of Valentine's Revolution. In telling this history, Molina also substituted herself in it, implying the persecution and unfair treatment of homosexuals at that time.
Mental Space: The mental space in the film is an allusion to physical and emotional changes, and Valentine was seriously injured when he first went to prison, and gradually recovered under the care of Molina. When Molina mistakenly ate food containing drugs, she was cared for by Valentine. The change of identity between the two gradually leads to a change in the mental space, in which each other finds a way to redeem each other.
Beyond reality, the possibility of ideals is explored in the film, and when we are able to learn about Valentine's revolutionary beliefs, we will be moved by this lofty belief. As Molina walks desperately to the world that Valentine depicts, he sacrifices his life and fulfills his insistence on love in death.
At the time of writing this novel, Manuel. Puig seems particularly sober, he knows what kind of novels are the most attractive, so he does not go on a rampage to destroy those hard things like the revolutionary Valentine. Instead, it is to let the little man enter the situation he constructs, and through the plot and conflict between fiction and non-fiction, a complex emotion is generated. The most desperate thing is that Manuel. Puig depicted the ideal possibilities as much as possible, but everyone had no way to escape.
I don't want to explain the disillusionment of ideals from a political perspective, in fact, I don't like the word "disillusionment." For those seeking love, disillusionment is despair. When Molina was killed, there was no longer light in his eyes, for he knew that he had not completed the task given to him by Valentine. After Molina's death, Valentine was interrogated again, only this time he could no longer be cared for by Molina, so he went to despair.
Spider Woman's Kiss is a film about disillusionment and despair. Directed by Hecott. In expressing this gloom, Babbank adopts the method of transforming the antagonistic relationship, making people constantly hover between hope and despair.
We can think of the two main characters in the two stories as two opposing relationships, and look at the complexity of human nature through the transformation of each other: homosexuality and heterosexuality, emotion and reason, mass culture and elite culture, redeemer and redeemed. The two exchange understandings each other in the enclosed space, break the boundaries between the contrasting relationships, and finally complete the exchange of identities, and complete the ideals that may be realized in death and dreams.
The Transition Between Homosexuality and Heterosexuality: Molina is defined at the beginning of the film as an avid melodrama lover, Valentin is an avid revolutionary, and the commonalities between the two lay the foundation for the subsequent exchange of identities. In the long-term day and night together, the feelings of the two have undergone subtle changes. Molina fell in love with Valentine, and Valentine went from initial disgust to final acceptance.
The transition between emotion and reason: In telling the story of the film, Molina sees himself as the heroine of the film, always looking for a shoulder to lean on. When he was paroled, he put on a bright red ribbon, at which point reason replaced emotion, and he devoted himself to a more noble cause and became Valentine's revolutionary comrade-in-arms.
The transition between popular culture and elite culture: If Molina represents mass culture, then Valentine represents elite culture, and at the end, Molina dedicates himself to Valentine's revolutionary cause, and Valentine enters Molina's film world, and the two complete the transition in death and coma.
The transition between the redeemer and the redeemed: Valentine is redeemed by Molina, igniting hope for life, while Molina is redeemed by Valentine, freed from the entanglement of lust, and embarked on the glorious revolutionary road. Unfortunately, each other's redemption was ultimately defeated by dictatorship, and the line between reality and ideals was no longer clear.
In Spider-Woman's Kiss, Hecott. Babbank is like a magician, using the narrative technique of film-in-film to lead the audience through the shuttle between reality and ideals. We don't know whether this is fate's play with the little people or the director's play with the characters. Revolutionaries have sex with homosexuals, homosexuals become revolutionaries, revolutionaries lose their dreams, homosexuals die in politics. Life is presented here in the absurd, and the ideal may become a gorgeous tragedy.
From novel to film, "Kiss of the Spider-Woman" presents more than just a historical tragedy, director Hector. Babbank uses the visual codes he has mastered to hint at the real dilemmas and ideal disillusionment of the characters, and also highlights the repression and distortion of individual desires in a repressive environment. The plight of individuals is revealed in the film, and unfortunately, we cannot help them get out of the labyrinth of difficulties, they can only survive in the "spider web", mapping the ideal kingdom in death and dreams.