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ARTS

| Anti-political bias

in Spiderwoman

Kiss of the Spiderwoman. Directed by Hector Babenco.
Screenplay by Leonard Schrader. Based on a novel by Manuel
Puig. Starring William Hurt, Raul Julia, and Sonia Braga. USA,
1985. .

Kiss of the Spiderwoman has all the ingredients of a good film:
excellent direction, fine acting, captivating story, and an off-beat
blend of fantasy and sexuality. With a political setting and a
Marxist protagonist/antagonist, it had great potential. But this is
not a political film, at worst it is anti-political.

Valentin and Molina share a cell in a Latin American country.
Valentin, (Puerto-Rican born actor Raul Julia), is a political pris-
oner — a revolutionary. William Hurt is Molina, a homosexual
charged with having relations with a minor. They have nothing in
common except their forced companionship.

Molina escapes his misery through fantasy. He relishes old

_ romantic *B’ movies and rises above the squalor of his cell by
recounting in vivid, sensual detail a World War II melodrama.
Valentin is at first both fascinated and repulsed by the effeminate
Molina but entertained by the story. It Passes the time. Then he is
horrified to realize the film Molina is describing is Nazi-made,
pro-fascist, and anti-semitic.

Molina doesn’t concern himself with the politics of his movie.
He only wants the emotion — the love story between a French
singer (Sonia Braga) and an SS officer. He continues the yarn and
Valentin, with objections, becomes wrapped up in it.

It is disconcerting that Valentin accepts the Nazi story as
entertainment, but then he is only a stereotype — a. humorless,
purist, devoted to the cause above all else. He refuses Molina’s
avocado for fear it will ‘‘spoil’’ him and divert him from his
revolutionary path. He feels guilty about loving a ‘‘bourgeois”’

woman and in a despairing moment calls himself a ‘‘hypocrite, .

just like all those class-conscious pigs.’

That’s a bit hard on his comrades, even if he is a depressed,
tortured, prisoner. Surely it’s natural that Valentin as a journal-
ist, an intellectual, would fall for a woman who shares his educa-
tion and sophistication. Her wealthy background should be sec-
ondary to her political beliefs. Valentin leaves her and takes up
with a working-class woman in the underground, not out of love,
but because he feels it more appropriate.

We get a glimpse of Valentin as anti-female and homophobic.
He accuses Molina in a rage of acting like a woman. In tears,
Molina asks why only women are allowed to be sensitive and not
men. Indeed why not revolutionaries.

Valentin is overwhelmed by the kindness and caring shown by
his cell-mate. It cements the friendship in spite of their differ-
ences. It is strange that Valentin’s revolutionism is so devoid of
emotion. Latin American revolutionaries are noted for their hu-
manity, humor, joy, and tears. El Salvadorean guerrillas carry
guitars as well as rifles. Chilean political prisoners share every-
thing they have, no matter how little, with those who have less.
Why does Valentin have to learn all of these traits from his
homosexual companion?

The answer may be two-fold. Valentin is a journalist who
wanted to do something about the state repression in his country.
His revolutionary ideology has all been learned, not experienced
from a working class reality.

The average viewer will not identify Valentin as a petty
bourgeois radical but probably as a fairly typical Marxist.

This stereotype may be a result of the possible contempt held
for revolutionaries by author, Manuel Puig, whose novel is the
basis for Kiss of the Spiderwoman. Calling himself an ‘‘inde-
pendent socialist’, Puig disdains movies with a political mes-
sage. Born in Argentina, he studied film in Italy in the 1950s. He
‘came to reject the socially conscious work of his Italian col-
leagues and preferred the fantastic escapism of American
movies, in particular the musicals.

Puig’s attitude towards Marxism and social change creeps in
many times. Valentin tells ‘‘Dr. Americo’’, another member of
the underground, ‘‘I keep wondering if it’s all worth it. Nothing
really changes.’’ He says to Molina that Americo had ‘‘accom-
plished almost nothing’’.

In the climax Molina accomplishes an heroic act. He does it out
of love for Valentin, exactly as a romantic figure in one of his
melodramatic films would have done. Earlier, when Valentin had
asked what character he identified with in the Nazi film, Molina
replies, ‘““The singer. I’m always the heroine.”’ Molina makes the
fantasy a reality. The unfolding of events and his behavior paral-
lels his world of melodrama. To him, Valentin i is exactly like the
hero/lover in his film — strong, pure, virile —‘‘a real man’’. The
twist is that the hero in the German film is a Nazi. For Molina it
wouldn't matter if Valentin is a leftist or a rightist. Valentin is the
romantic figure to Molina’s heroine. When Valentin affectionate-
ly tells his cell-mate not to let anyone degrade him again, Molina,
is transformed, like a female character in an old movie, from a
‘“*tramp”’ into a “‘real woman’’. As that character, he carries out
his mission of love.

Kiss of the Spiderwoman is a human story about the trans-
formation of two characters while fascinating, the change that
comes. about in the climax is personal, not political.

— Mark Conway

Raul Julia and William Hurt in Kiss of the Spiderwoman. |

14 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 2, 1985

Union history will stir debate —

MINE-MILL — The History of the International
Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers in
Canada-since 1895: By Mike Solski & Jack
Smaller, Steel Rail Publishing: Ottawa. Bitte
$16.85.

The book begins by relating the militant strug-
gles of The Western Federation of Miners which
originated in the United States and operated on
both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. In 1916 the
WFM changed its name to The International Union
of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers.

The book is a high quality publishing job, with
over 170 pictures and illustrations. It deals rather
well with the terrible ordeals facing workers in the
raw material extraction industries such as mining
— during and following the formation of the North
American capitalist monopolies.

The naked brutality of that corporate fraternity
is perhaps most clearly revealed in the case of the
International Nickel in Sudbury, which fought
tooth and claw against any and all attempts of its
workers to organize a union.

Eventually after several efforts in the 1930’s and
1940's, the Mine Mill broke through and Local 598
in Sudbury became a banner local of the union in
Canada, with more than one-half of the 30,000-odd
members of the union in Canada, and the Cominco
Local in Trail, B.C. being the second largest with
more than 8,000 members.

The book attempts to deal with two decades of
right-wing conspiracy to destroy Mine Mill in both
the USA and in Canada. The Sudbury Local bore
the brunt of this bitter struggle against a militant
trade union whose enemies used Red-baiting as a
key propaganda weapon.

That situation required a bold rebuff firmly ad-
ministered and concretely related to the genuine,
and not the ficticious, challenge posed by the raid-
ers.

To win the working class to understand the need
for economic, social and political change and,
through its growing influence win the public to the
side of labor and human progress, also meant to
isolate and destroy the influence of the anti-labor
and pro-cold-war elements of U.S. and Canadian
monopoly capital. Without this kind of clarity of
perspective the working class will be compelled to
fight old battles over and over again in more and

“more difficult conditions.

**World War I had ended with the split into two
contending factions, with uprisings and revo-
lutionary movements threatening the very ram-
parts of private enterprise everywhere. World War
II ended with the emergence of two super powers,
with two opposing political and industrial systems,
and the Cold War began, laden with an under-
lying threat of becoming hot.”

As can be seen, this paragraph spans more than
three decades and several momentous events, in-
cluding the birth of real socialism in the old Russian
Empire; the birth of Communist parties in many
countries, including USA and Canada; the rapid
growth of the world working class movement; the
general crisis of capitalism; the worldwide eco-

- followed by the growing demand for a new world

nomic depression; the second World War against |
fascism and the break-up of the colonial system,

economic order, world peace and socialism. q
‘*With the guns silenced’’ continue the authors |
of Mine Mill — ‘‘the U.S. establishment turned its
attention to assuring that the post-war world would
stabilize in its image. In the U.S. ... external rela-_
tions were characterized by the emergence of thé
Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the crea-
tion of NATO.
‘Internally ... a new piece of legislation ..+
denied visas to anyone who would ‘prejudice the
public interest’. (people such as Paul Robeson,)
The Taft-Hartley Act demanded that elected uniom |
leaders sign pledges affirming their anti-Com® | i
munism. ... i

‘‘For the labor bureaucracy in the U.S. antl
Canada, that was the ‘‘go’’ signal, and the inter~
national conspiracy between the U.S. and Canada
began to unfold itself.” ‘|

Earlier, the authors of Mine Mill:acknowledge: i

‘In 1930 the Workers Unity League stepped intO
the vacuum, and through its affiliate, the Mine
Workers Union, took up the challenge of organ |
izing metal miners in northern Ontario . when
the IUMMSW returned to Northern Ontario in
1936, the Mine Workers Union (WUL) sent its
members into Timmins Local 241, Kirkland Lake
Local 240 and Sudbury Local 239.”

But much more ought to have been said a
the role of the Workers Unity League and of t
communists in the labor movement in both the
U.S. and Canada. The fight for industrial unions in
North America and the rise of the CIO in 1936 was
not a sudden brain-wave on the part of John Lew /
and his elite group of topunion leaders in the AFL”
It was the product of acorrect policy orientation 08
the part the communists in both Canada and the
USA. It was the result of years of bitter clas>

Canada, of which more than 80 per cent were vI¢_—
torious. This, at a time when the AFL-TLC leadet”
ship claimed strikes could not be won in the 1930'S:
The great weakness of Mine Mill is its failure ©
meet Red-baiting head-on, for whatever reason:
It is probably true that the main pressure ©
destroy Mine Mill came from below the 49th para
lel, as the authors say in their concluding part ©
their book. 4%
But there were plenty of elements in the rulin8-
class of Canada that were eager to play the game?
the same way as their class brothers below the 49
parallel. a
I think this book will help to stir up memories a0®
debate about the history of labor and, in particulaly
the role of communists in that great and glorioUy
battle to be masters in our own house. And whi”
progress is being made, this reviewer feels that !®
from being finished, the struggle for a sovereighy
independent and united trade union movement SP ua
has to be won. 4