"Binary Ideologies" and Kiss of the Spider Woman

Manuel Puig's The Kiss of the Spider Woman, while utilizing various registers is centered around the dialogue of the conversations between the two main characters, Molina and Valentin. We briefly discussed the idea that removing a traditional narrator from the text is somehow "liberating" and represents a movement away from more repressive structures in novels. I think that this is especially true in KOTSW because not only does Puig claim the act of narration for the people, but he gives it to marginalized groups who's voice(s) are often ignored or silenced, especially in the context of the novel. I read an interesting review of the book in the International Fiction Review that cited the dialogue structure as representative of a "binary ideological structure" where each character represents a social construct of gender. With the progression of the plot, these structures are deconstructed as the characters break cultural taboos and essentially enter into the other's world. Therefore, we can take this as a metaphor for Puig challenging the binary ideology of Western/Argentine society, and as Drozo writes, "advocates a system of infinite multiplicity, wherein the oppressor/oppressed relation is invalidated." The argument in the essay is very comprehensive*. I find it interesting that Puig studied architecture, given the fact that he employs a rather complicated structure in his novel.
Using architecture as a jumping off point for my criticism of the film, I was disappointed in some of the staging aspects of the film. For one thing, I found the dimensions of the "cell" to be disorienting and incongruent with the novel's use of the cell as a catalyst for the merging of two very different personalities. In fact, the architecture of the prison in general was a bit strange.
I did think that the characters were represented faithfully as well as the general plot of the novel. In regards to Molina's narration of the movies, I believe that the Nazi movie was most appropriate for the film, but that the intermittent telling of that one story did not sufficiently represent the extent that escapist fantasy was necessary to relieve Molina's feelings of isolation, and a bonding mechanism for Molina and Valentin. There was very little representation of the political situation in Brazil in the film making it hard to understand Valentin's position or sympathies. Finally, the physical difference and discrepancy in language and accent between the characters were distracting. The fact that Molina and Valentin share a nationality was not significant in the movie, and Molina's dialect and vocabulary almost made it seem as if he was a foreigner in an unfamiliar country.

* http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/IFR/bin/get.cgi?directory=Vol.26/&filename=Drozdo.htm

Psychology and Theatrics - The Spider's Stratagem

In the film The Spider's Stratagem, director Bernardo Bertolucci adapts Borges' story of political revoltionary heroism and adapts it to Fascist/post-Musolini Italy. What might have been an overtly political film becomes more of a study of psychological paradoxes played out in both past and present time. The character Athos Magnani Jr, a dead ringer for his father - the assassinated revolutionary hero of Tara - enters into a realm where his identity is made blurry through his connection to his father. The fact that Bertolucci uses the same actor for both father and son makes this even more clear to the viewer. It is almost as if once he has arrived in the town of Tara, Athos has entered another reality that exists outside of the linear time of the rest of the world. (Also, because he is identical to his father, strangers in the town act as if they already know Athos Jr, or have been expecting him)
Indeed, this alternate reality is underscored by the role-playing of many of the characters and the theatrical, staged manner of many of the scenes. This of course is a direct adaptation of the genious of Borges' story - history as a construct. Towards the end of the film, the entire town is transformed into a stage, with Rigoletto playing through outdoor speakers. Athos Jr is pulled into the theatre by deterministic forces rather than of his own will. Or perhaps they are one in the same. In all, the movie is one that calls for analysis as well as a tolerance or appreciation for fantasy. I think Borges would have approved of the adaptation.
- Ciao!

also for anyone interested in the psychology/theater exchange I would reccomend John Fowles The Magus

On Blowup: Short-story and film

Blow-up, or "The Devil's Drool" is the first piece of literature I have read by Julio Cortazar, and I was enamored. I very much enjoyed the disassociative quality of the text, the shifts between first and third person narrative, vulnerability of the main character, and the subtlety of the disturbing climax/conclusion. Interesting, then, that what I felt were some of the essential details of the story - Paris in November, the amateur photographer who is vocationally a translator, and of course the implied pedophilia were changed in Antonioni's film Blowup. The movie is successful in the mainstream because it is sexy and "fantastic" where the story is melancholy and solitary. The film's components have the makings of a blockbuster, plus all the correct zeitgeist and exciting cameos (Veruschka! Jimmy Page!). The film most resembles the short story in two places - when David Hemmings' character makes the blow-ups of the photos and becomes fixed on them, after the he has made the discovery of the murder: the mood he comes to inhabit is more withdrawn, distracted and morose than his earlier self. No matter how you choose to view the film, the main characters reality becomes markedly distorted after he sees the corpse (or maybe he felt funny from all the pot). I enjoyed the final scene of the movie the most because for me it represented Hemmings accepting the reality of his imagination and maybe finding solace in that (wonderful use of sound by Antonioni throughout the film).

I wonder if the pedophilia in the story was just too off-putting and base to have been part of the adaptation. In the story, even the slightest hint of it is enough to sicken the narrator. And the general public doesnt seem to stand for it - movies depicting the sexual abuse of children are relegated to the fringes (though I could be wrong, I don't know so much).
All that being said, I would love to see someone make a 100% faithful adaptation of "The Devil's Drool". It would be quiet, a bit sad and a bit sordid, my favorite kind of film. And the female character in the park would have a very ugly face (that's how I picture her; there are too many beautiful people in Antonioni's film).
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