La Loi du désir

I once read that Pedro Almodovar wanted to reach out his audience via their hearts, their minds and their genitals, with this, my first experience with the director, he most certainly sticks to his aims. The film opens with a young man masturbating upon the orders of his director, from here on in the tone is set for what is, a bonkers, yet highly entertaining picture.

The plot revolves around the sexual adventures of gay director Pablo Quintero and his transsexual sister, Tina, her struggle with men and the duty of bringing up a young daughter who she fathered when she was a he!, still with me?. Into their lives comes Antonio Benitez, he's sexually fascinated with Pablo but gets his nose put out of joint upon learning of Pablo's love of another guy called Juan, things are about to get darkly unnerving.

Law Of Desire is stylish and full of tricky eccentricities, it's also very much in your face with its blatant urge to be seedy, however it's backed up by wonderful performances from Antoino Banderas {Benitez}, Carmen Maura {Tina} and Eusebio Poncela {Pablo}, whilst it's director is clearly a talent that was, at this time in his life, making films with attitude and a devil may care spirit. 7/10

This film is centred on two siblings; Pablo, a gay film director who makes homo-erotic films; and his sister Tina, who is a transsexual lesbian who dreams of being an actress and is raising a ten year old girl named Ada who is the daughter of her former girlfriend. After Pablo's lover, Jaun, goes away for the summer he begins a relationship with Antonio, not suspecting that the latter will get dangerously jealous of his love for Juan.

As with most films by director Pedro Almodóvar the plot is secondary to the characters; it is there to put the characters in an interesting, and fairly melodramatic positions. This of course requires interesting central characters and here we get those. As is often the case they are a fairly unconventional group. There are things that may disturb some viewers such as Tina talking about her incestuous relationship with her father who persuaded her to get a sex change before leaving her... particularly shocking is that she doesn't feel abused. Pablo's relationships with Juan and Antonio are surprisingly frank for a film made in the eighties. The cast is solid with Eusebio Poncela and Carmen Maura really impressing as Pablo and Tina; Antonio Banderas is great as Antonio and young Manuela Velasco impresses as Ada. Things do get melodramatic towards the end but that doesn't feel out of place; in fact it is relatively mild compared to some of Almodóvar's other films. Overall I'd say this won't be for everybody but it is a must see for fans of Almodóvar's work.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.

You will find all the familiar Almodovar devices here: telephones, drug use (cocaine in particular), dysfunctional families, sexual ambiguity, pedophile priests, and hospitals. These themes permeate his work, but they are woven intricately throughout this film.

Pablo (Eusebio Poncela) is a writer/director of fantastic movies. He gets into the snares of an obsessive (Antonio Banderas in a great performance) who has a fatal attraction and will kill for his love. At the same time, he has to deal with his transvestite sister played by Carmen Maura (Volver, Women on the Verge, Matador) in another magnificent role.

It is a melodrama about love as that is the overriding need for Banderas and for Maura, who has given up on men since her father left her. It is also about family. Of course, there is a crossing of genres as there is some comedy, but that is minor.

Another magnificent Almodovar film.

The most significant aspect of The Law of Desire is the fact that it was so accepted in Spain at the time of its release. It was put forward by the authorities as the movie to represent the country in 1987. Bearing in mind that Spain had only come out of a fascist dictatorship not much more than a decade earlier, this simple fact is a testament to how far the country had moved on in such a short period of time. The reason for this is that this is an unashamedly gay themed film, one that celebrates homosexuality and depicts it without issue.

The film itself is about a love triangle between three men. Like several other Pedro Almodóvar films it's a melodrama with thriller elements. It features an extremely daring performance by Antonio Banderas in a role where he is required to perform in some full-on gay love scenes. These moments made the film front page news in Spain but it did nothing to stop Banderas subsequent rise to stardom. For me, however, this is a middling movie. It's not amongst the director's best. In my view, its interest lies more in its historical significance as opposed to it's worth as a film.

In what has now customarily become known as the New Queer Cinema, Almodovar's "Law of Desire" must be seen as a landmark film. Opening with a naked man masturbating and being guided through the motions by the disembodied voice of 'the director', this turns out to be something of a red-herring, though it does establish that the film's central character is a director, (Almodovar?), and that he is gay. What follows is a teasing Hitchcockain menage-a-trois murder yarn, (not mystery), in which the homosexuality of the protagonists is very much to the fore and is hardly seen as 'an issue', (a major breakthrough in what was a mainstream Spanish movie of its day). Indeed "Law of Desire" was the film which really established Almodovar internationally and while gay-themed movies were finally making their mark in 1987 few were quite as explicitly erotic or as pleasurably in-your-face as this.

Its cast was largely made up of what only be described as players from Almodovar's stock company and in a fine cast Antonio Banderas and Carmen Maura are the stand-outs; he as a pathologically disturbed 'fan' whose obsession with Eusebio Puncela's director leads to murder and she as the director's transsexual 'sister', a deliriously giddy performance and yet played mostly 'straight' by Maura.

If not quite as deep as Almodovar's later movies there is nevertheless much to enjoy here, (and although dealing with tragic issues Almodovar teases out the black comedy for all its worth). Now, of course, a great deal of the fun is in slotting the film into the Almodovar canon and seeing exactly where it fits in relation to the movies that followed it.