Law of Desire (1987)
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

Film Review

By the mid-1980s, with five full-length films under his belt, Pedro Almodóvar was already a force to be reckoned with, the up-and-coming enfant terrible of Spanish cinema who had already achieved cult status with his distinctive and iconoclastic style of filmmaking.  So confident was the 36-year-old Almodóvar that he founded his own film production company, El Deseo, with his brother in 1986 and immediately began making the more polished and personal films that would soon garner him an international reputation as an auteur of the first rank.  Law of Desire (a.k.a. La ley del deseo) was the first film Almodóvar made for his new company and it is arguably his most important, creating a template for much of his subsequent work, with themes that would become central to his oeuvre - themes such as passion, desire, identity, family and the problems of women.

With its brazenly authentic portrayal of a homosexual love triangle, Law of Desire was also a boldly transgressive film for its time, and it still feels astonishingly modern compared with contemporary depictions of gay men and gay relationships.  Even as late as the mid-1980s, mainstream cinema wasn't yet ready to accept homosexuality, and films such as Marek Kanievska's Another Country (1984), James Ivory's Maurice (1987) and Stephen Frears' Prick Up Your Ears (1987) were distinctly half-hearted in their well-meaning by overly coy attempts to normalise this aspect of human identity.  Almodóvar makes few concessions to the predominantly homophobic attitudes of his time and includes in his film not only a full-on depiction of homosexual desire but a gay sex scene that was shocking in its explicitness (although incredibly tame by today's standards).  Law of Desire is also significant for its startlingly sympathetic portrayal of a transgender character, played to perfection by one of the director's most committed actresses, Carmen Maura.  The latter had already featured in four of Almodóvar's films - including his debut piece Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980) - but would only work with him one more time, on Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988).

Despite its highly controversial subject matter and somewhat melodramatic treatment of some drastically serious themes, Law of Desire proved to be a major commercial and critical success.  The film's immense popularity provided a massive career boost to one of its lead actors, Antonio Banderas, who was soon being courted by Hollywood on a path that would lead ineluctably to international stardom.  Banderas was the most loyal of Almodóvar's lead actors, having had his screen debut in the director's early film Labyrinth of Passion (1982).  By 2019, the two men had collaborated on eight films, including some of the director's most important offerings - Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), The Skin I Live In (2011) and Pain and Glory (2019).  The manic intensity that Banderas brings to his portrayal of a sexually ambiguous man consumed by his blazing passions is, more than anything, what make Law of Desire such an extremely dark and compelling film, contributing a blistering realism that cuts through Almodóvar's self-consciously Sirkian stylisation like a razor-edged scimitar through butter.

Law of Desire is memorable for other reasons.  The performances are excellent right across the board, although Eusebio Poncela deserves a special mention for his harrowingly convincing portrayal of Almodóvar's quasi-alter ego, a successful director struggling to balance the competing demands of his art and his tragically fraught human connections.  Almodóvar's mise-en-scène has none of the rough-and-ready, improvisational feel of his earlier films and shows the confidence of a mature cineaste who knows exactly how best to get across his intentions, with the result that Law of Desire is undoubtedly among his most satisfying and polished works, arguably his first true masterpiece.  The director's recurring use of symbolism is at its most succinct and effective in the stand-out sequence where the two rival lovers confront each other in a forbidding but beautifully photographed coastal setting, viciously laying into each other with a towering lighthouse (the most blatant of phallic symbols) boldly illuminated in the background behind them.  Law of Desire abounds with moments of such starting visual and dramatic power as this and leaves the spectator in no doubt that Pedro Almodóvar is, of all the great film directors of the late twentieth century, the one who probably has most to say about the true nature of human beings as they struggle to come to terms with the horrors and joys of existence.

Film Synopsis

Pablo Quintero is a gay Spanish filmmaker whose erotic films have become something of an obsession for a young admirer named Antonio Benítez.  Pablo is considering ending an affair with his boyfriend Juan, who has left Madrid to return to his home village in southern Spain, when the hitherto religiously straight Antonio reluctantly agrees to have sex with him.  For Pablo, this is just another in a long line of meaningless liaisons, but for the younger Antonio it is the beginning of a passionate love affair, one that he has no intention of walking away from.

Pablo is far more preoccupied with his transgender sister Tina, whom he has managed to alienate after using her traumatic real-life experiences as the basis of his next film.  Her outrage is nothing compared with what Antonio feels on learning that Pablo still has fond feelings for Juan.  Consumed with jealousy, Antonio tracks down Juan and attempts to seduce him.  The encounter soon turns violent and Antonio throws his rival over a cliff.  The most likely suspect for Juan's murder, Pablo is pursued by the police.  After a car accident, the film director wakes up in hospital to find he has lost his memory...