Law of Desire (1987): Almodovar’s Gay Erotic Thriller, Starring Antonio Banderas and Carmen Maura

Having dealt with straight sexuality in “Matador,” it was logical for Alomodovar to follow up with a similarly themed erotic thriller, only this time set in a specifically gay milieu and dealing with the more particular varieties and vagaries of homosexual love.

Made in 1987, Law of Desire (“La Ley Del Deseo”) boasts a more complex narrative and more intriguing characters than those of “Matador,” but to me, it’s a less enjoyable movie.

Grounded in the specificity of Spanish culture, the film was largely acclaimed after its world premiere at the 1987 Berlin Film Fest, where it played to enthusiastic response.  “Law of Desire” became the first Almodovar film to be sold right away worldwide.

Intertextuality: Splendor in the Grass and Paris, Texas

A self-conscious director, Almodovar is aware of those links, as he himself has said: “I focused ‘What Have I Done’ on the Mother figure, and I’m focusing on the Brothers now. I didn’t know what type of fraternity to opt for men when I started writing the screenplay.  Given my temper, I turned for reference to Warren Beatty and Barbara Loden in ‘Splendor in the Grass.’ I’ve always been sensitive to stories of siblings, even in those with a good main love story, my interest was always on the siblings.  Pablo and Tina are the type of siblings working in show business. Like Vivien Leigh and Kim Hunter, they are attracted to the same man (In ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’).  And like Harry Dean Stanton and Dean Stockwell (in ‘Paris, Texas’) they support one another when necessary.”

One of Almodovar’s few explicitly gay melodramas, in which most of the characters are gay, the film contains fully developed characters with distinctive personalities.  “Law of Desire” is also one of the director’s more personal films since the protagonist, Pablo Quintero, is a successful director who makes shockingly erotic films, bearing such bizarre titles as “The Paradigm of the Mussel.”  Publicly, Almodovar has acknowledged that only two or three of the plot’s elements draw on his life, such as the scene in which Tina confronts the choirmaster, who had abused her as a boy (Almodovar would return to this issue in “Bad Education”).  For him, the more significant fact was the exploration of erotic desires, expressed in different way by the tale’s male characters.  “This is a movie about guys,” Almodovar proudly declared, “from now on nobody can accuse  me of only directing women.”

Almodovar has always said that his ultimate goal was “to reach audiences directly through their hearts, their minds–and their genitals.”  This is clearly achieved in “Law of Desire,” an exhilarating erotic thriller whose title could describe each one of Almodovar’s works, as well as his entire oeuvre. His production company, overseen by his producer brother Agustin, is named “El Deseo,” simply meaning, Desire Unlimited.

In the opening scene, one of the most sexually graphic in Almodovar’s work, an authorial voice is heard instructing a gorgeous-looking boy to strip to his underwear, go to the mirror and kiss himself.  The voice belongs to Pablo Quintero (Eusebio Poncela), who then commands the boy to rub his crotch, take off his underwear, caress himself and then masturbate to completion. The brief shot ends with a close-up of the cash money paid to the performer.

At a party after the premiere of his new picture, he meets Antonio (Antonio Banderas), a handsome closeted gay, who becomes obsessed with Pablo. At the end of the evening they go home together and Antonio experiences anal sex for the first time. The provincial Antonio is easily impressionable and he’s also opportunistic.  After seeing one of Pablo’s movies, Antonio rushes to the men’s room and begin to masturbate while reciting the same words he had heard onscreen, “Fuck me. Fuck me.”  First showing Antonio from the back in a medium shot, Almodovar then cuts from a shot of the boy’s tight jeans to a close-up of his red lips.  Almodovar may be using Antonio’s character to suggest the immediate and visceral influence of movies, their seductively dangerous appeal.  Antonio is a psychotic whose particular social background is used as an explanation.  He is the product of a rigid politician of a father, and a conservative and obsessive mother.  The mother who’s of German origins is perpetually worried about her husband discovering Antonio’s homosexuality and, later, finding out Anonio’s involvement in Juan’s death.

Pablo parts with his blue-collar lover, Juan (Miguel Molina), who’s heading south for the summer.  Unhappy with his life, and confused about his sexuality, Juan needs some time to contemplate his future.  The narcissistic Pablo insists that Juan send him love letters.  His plan is to write the letters by himself, and then have Juan mail them back to him with Juan’s signature.  In a touching moment, the two men undress quietly and spend their last night together quietly, while the soundtrack plays the iconic French chanson, “Ne Me Quitte Pas” (“Don’t Leave Me”) by Jacques Brel.

In Almodovar’s tales, when couples first meet, they engage in steamy sex, as if the director is in a hurry to entrap his spectators, especially his gay fans.  For Pablo, sex with Antonio means just a lusty sex, a one-night stand, but Antonio misunderstands his intentions.  He wants to have a long-term relationship, and he gets dangerously jealous when ignored or disrespected.  Indeed, upon discovery of Juan’s existence, the jealous Antonio tries to rape Juan and kills him, throwing him off a cliff.

 

Driving south to see his dead lover, Pablo confronts Antonio, and they argue ferociously before the devastated Pablo drives off.  Pursued by the police, Pablo gets injured in a car crash, and in the next scene, he wakes up in the hospital suffering from amnesia. The police suspect both Tina and Pablo for the murder, and only a sympathetic doctor keeps them at bay.

A parallel, far more engaging dramatic story involves Pablo’s transsexual sister, Tina (Carmen Maura), a struggling actress. In the film’s most shocking scene, Tina visits Pablo at the hospital and makes a typical Almodovarian confession.  Born as a boy, Tina had undergone a sex change operation in order to experience a full relationship with her father. After running away with their father, he left her for another woman.  As a result, Tina has come to hate men so much that people think she might be a lesbian. Tina is now responsible for raising alone a teenage girl named Ada, whose mother (played by the famed Spanish transsexual actress and singer, Bibí Andersen) is seldom at home.

Never a bashful or discrete director, Almodovar piles up one bizarre narrative strand atop another.  Tina announces she has found a new lover, and to Pablo’s dismay, it turns out to be Antonio. Regaining his memory, Pablo observes the manipulative Antonio socializing with Tina. Worried that Antonio might harm Tina, he calls the police. Taking Tina hostage, Antonio agrees to let her go if Pablo would talk to him, and the stunned and limping Pablo agrees. The story accelerates to its tragic finale.  The couple experience some tender moments for the first time, after which Antonio suddenly shoots himself.

At first glance, the thematic transition from “Matador” and “What Have I Done to Deserve It?” into “Law of Desire” seems sharp and radical, but a closer look reveals that in Matador, one of the subplots is the relationship between powerful mentor and disturbed student, and in “What Have I Done,” there is concern with two brothers, who are vastly different, and sibling rivalry. Thus, it’s not a stretch to claim that “Law of Desire,””+ though gay-themes, revisits the issues of fraternity and bonding of various kinds between older men and younger guys.  That the younger guy is played in both “Matador” and “Law of Desire” by Antonio Banderas provides a further link between them.

Upon release, “Law of Desire” was attacked by both the homophobic right wing and the left wing critics for different reasons.  Some reviewers were upset by the politically incorrect depiction of sex, seen by gay viewers during the height of the AIDS crisis.  When Pablo and Antonio are about to have sex for the first time, the former asks the director whether his promiscuity has made him vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases.  Denying the charge, Pablo gets irritated.  However, when he penetrates Antonio upon the latter’s request, Almodovar shows Pablo using lubricant but not condoms, which led to charges of promoting “unsafe” sex.  Almodovar claimed defiantly that he was highly aware of the health crisis, but defended the scene due to its specific context and particular characters.  Moreover, the director felt that the critics were more upset by the dialogue lines: “Men, especially straight ones, cannot tolerate hearing a man asking another man, ‘fuck me.’”

Almodovar was “more nervous shooting the film’s sex scenes than the actors.”  None of the actors was gay, which made it easier for him, “because then the performers act and represent, they are not reliving.” In general, Almodovar does not view his work as mimetic but as stylized and redemptive. He felt that in this particular scene, instead of obeying the dictates of reality, he was relieving the spectators of that reality by conjuring it away, by turning it into an excessive fantasy.

A similar logic has guided the casting of Carmen Maura, based on his idea that, “a real woman would represent a transsexual more poignantly.”  For the director, the real desire in the film is personified by the transsexual Tina, not by any of the gay men.  The goal was “to make Tina and the whole film look fresh and natural and these straight people proved so natural about their bodies, they had no shame about their physicality, no sense of something unnatural or prohibited. And after the first half an hour, the audience forgets that the lovers are men; they accept it as a love story.  That’s a big change in Spain and really healthy.”   The film’s more significant aspect was Tina’s betrayal by all those around her, especially the two men that she really loved, the priest, her spiritual father and mentor, and her biological father, who took her to Morocco, forced upon her a sex change operation, and then abandoned her.  It makes things worse that Tina is later deserted by her lesbian lover and is left alone to take care of her daughter, Ada.

Some of the men try to forget the past, but not Tina, who stresses the importance of memory and the inevitable burden of the past on the present.  When the priest urges Tina to forget their love affair, Tina cannot (and is unable to), because all she has now are memories. Similarly, when Pablo suffers from amnesia, Tina insists on maintaining the past and their filial bonding.  “Your amnesia deprives me of memory,” she says, pointing to an album of old photos when they were happy boys, a scene that reduces both of them to tears.

La Pieta

That older gay men can–and do–play surrogate fathers-brothers to their younger lovers is manifest in two scenes, both involving Pablo, in which Almodovar evokes the religious image of “La Pieta.”

In the first, Pablo carries his lover Juan to the bedroom on their last, chaste night, “as one would carry a child.” And in the end, after the psychotic Antonio shoots himself, Pablo holds him in his arms as a baby, evoking religious iconography of La Pieta.  “Law of Desire” is a dark amour fou, where passionate love leads to death, but it’s also a portrait of gay men who, despite promiscuity with many lovers, can still be tender and sensitive.  Juan leaves Pablo, because he feels that he cannot love him as the ultra-narcissistic Pablo wants and needs to be desired.

Almodovar has also singled out the hose sequence, where Tina, hot, bothered, and frustrated in the night, shouts at a street cleaner to drench her, as one that’s more erotic for him than the intercourse between the men, because the scene is “very physical,” and “I made her giant on screen.  It’s a great release, something I’ve always dreamed of doing.”  Hence, charged by a policeman of “not being a woman,” Tina knocks him down with a punch usually associated with macho men.  The inspiration for the wet scene came from Federico Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece, “La Dolce Vita,” when the lush and iconic Anita Ekberg suddenly jumps into the Rome’s Fontana de Trevi.

Antonio Banderas, in his pre-Hollywood era, prompted headlines in movie and gossip magazines due to the explicit masturbation scene and the “gay kiss,” reportedly the first seen explicitly in Spanish film history.  “Law of Desire” shows stylish elegance and more assured filmmaking, two attributes that would mark the rest of Almodovar’s endeavor, reaching their height in “Broken Embraces” and “The Skin I Live In.”

In hindsight, “Law of Desire” may be more significant as a film experimenting with storytelling than as an explicitly gay feature.   At the end of the film, in what is a variation of amour fou, Pablo reacts to the suicide of Antonio, who he has learned to love in spite of himself and despite the circumstances, by throwing the typewriter out of the window.  Sure enough, the typewriter lands in another of the director’s favorite locales, the trash container, where it explodes into flames.

Why blame the typewriter? Why accord it so many close-ups?  Because Almodovar treats the object as a major character, both binding together and separating individuals in unpredictable but always intriguing ways.  (The same motif recurs in another autobiographical work centering on a writer, “Bad Education,” in 2004).

 

xosotin chelseathông tin chuyển nhượngcâu lạc bộ bóng đá arsenalbóng đá atalantabundesligacầu thủ haalandUEFAevertonxosokeonhacaiketquabongdalichthidau7m.newskqbdtysokeobongdabongdalufutebol ao vivofutemaxmulticanaisonbetbsport.fitonbet88.oooi9bet.bizhi88.ooookvip.atf8bet.atfb88.cashvn88.cashshbet.atbóng đá world cupbóng đá inter milantin juventusbenzemala ligaclb leicester cityMUman citymessi lionelsalahnapolineymarpsgronaldoserie atottenhamvalenciaAS ROMALeverkusenac milanmbappenapolinewcastleaston villaliverpoolfa cupreal madridpremier leagueAjaxbao bong da247EPLbarcelonabournemouthaff cupasean footballbên lề sân cỏbáo bóng đá mớibóng đá cúp thế giớitin bóng đá ViệtUEFAbáo bóng đá việt namHuyền thoại bóng đágiải ngoại hạng anhSeagametap chi bong da the gioitin bong da lutrận đấu hôm nayviệt nam bóng đátin nong bong daBóng đá nữthể thao 7m24h bóng đábóng đá hôm naythe thao ngoai hang anhtin nhanh bóng đáphòng thay đồ bóng đábóng đá phủikèo nhà cái onbetbóng đá lu 2thông tin phòng thay đồthe thao vuaapp đánh lô đềdudoanxosoxổ số giải đặc biệthôm nay xổ sốkèo đẹp hôm nayketquaxosokq xskqxsmnsoi cầu ba miềnsoi cau thong kesxkt hôm naythế giới xổ sốxổ số 24hxo.soxoso3mienxo so ba mienxoso dac bietxosodientoanxổ số dự đoánvé số chiều xổxoso ket quaxosokienthietxoso kq hôm nayxoso ktxổ số megaxổ số mới nhất hôm nayxoso truc tiepxoso ViệtSX3MIENxs dự đoánxs mien bac hom nayxs miên namxsmientrungxsmn thu 7con số may mắn hôm nayKQXS 3 miền Bắc Trung Nam Nhanhdự đoán xổ số 3 miềndò vé sốdu doan xo so hom nayket qua xo xoket qua xo so.vntrúng thưởng xo sokq xoso trực tiếpket qua xskqxs 247số miền nams0x0 mienbacxosobamien hôm naysố đẹp hôm naysố đẹp trực tuyếnnuôi số đẹpxo so hom quaxoso ketquaxstruc tiep hom nayxổ số kiến thiết trực tiếpxổ số kq hôm nayso xo kq trực tuyenkết quả xổ số miền bắc trực tiếpxo so miền namxổ số miền nam trực tiếptrực tiếp xổ số hôm nayket wa xsKQ XOSOxoso onlinexo so truc tiep hom nayxsttso mien bac trong ngàyKQXS3Msố so mien bacdu doan xo so onlinedu doan cau loxổ số kenokqxs vnKQXOSOKQXS hôm naytrực tiếp kết quả xổ số ba miềncap lo dep nhat hom naysoi cầu chuẩn hôm nayso ket qua xo soXem kết quả xổ số nhanh nhấtSX3MIENXSMB chủ nhậtKQXSMNkết quả mở giải trực tuyếnGiờ vàng chốt số OnlineĐánh Đề Con Gìdò số miền namdò vé số hôm nayso mo so debach thủ lô đẹp nhất hôm naycầu đề hôm naykết quả xổ số kiến thiết toàn quốccau dep 88xsmb rong bach kimket qua xs 2023dự đoán xổ số hàng ngàyBạch thủ đề miền BắcSoi Cầu MB thần tàisoi cau vip 247soi cầu tốtsoi cầu miễn phísoi cau mb vipxsmb hom nayxs vietlottxsmn hôm naycầu lô đẹpthống kê lô kép xổ số miền Bắcquay thử xsmnxổ số thần tàiQuay thử XSMTxổ số chiều nayxo so mien nam hom nayweb đánh lô đề trực tuyến uy tínKQXS hôm nayxsmb ngày hôm nayXSMT chủ nhậtxổ số Power 6/55KQXS A trúng roycao thủ chốt sốbảng xổ số đặc biệtsoi cầu 247 vipsoi cầu wap 666Soi cầu miễn phí 888 VIPSoi Cau Chuan MBđộc thủ desố miền bắcthần tài cho sốKết quả xổ số thần tàiXem trực tiếp xổ sốXIN SỐ THẦN TÀI THỔ ĐỊACầu lô số đẹplô đẹp vip 24hsoi cầu miễn phí 888xổ số kiến thiết chiều nayXSMN thứ 7 hàng tuầnKết quả Xổ số Hồ Chí Minhnhà cái xổ số Việt NamXổ Số Đại PhátXổ số mới nhất Hôm Nayso xo mb hom nayxxmb88quay thu mbXo so Minh ChinhXS Minh Ngọc trực tiếp hôm nayXSMN 88XSTDxs than taixổ số UY TIN NHẤTxs vietlott 88SOI CẦU SIÊU CHUẨNSoiCauVietlô đẹp hôm nay vipket qua so xo hom naykqxsmb 30 ngàydự đoán xổ số 3 miềnSoi cầu 3 càng chuẩn xácbạch thủ lônuoi lo chuanbắt lô chuẩn theo ngàykq xo-solô 3 càngnuôi lô đề siêu vipcầu Lô Xiên XSMBđề về bao nhiêuSoi cầu x3xổ số kiến thiết ngày hôm nayquay thử xsmttruc tiep kết quả sxmntrực tiếp miền bắckết quả xổ số chấm vnbảng xs đặc biệt năm 2023soi cau xsmbxổ số hà nội hôm naysxmtxsmt hôm nayxs truc tiep mbketqua xo so onlinekqxs onlinexo số hôm nayXS3MTin xs hôm nayxsmn thu2XSMN hom nayxổ số miền bắc trực tiếp hôm naySO XOxsmbsxmn hôm nay188betlink188 xo sosoi cầu vip 88lô tô việtsoi lô việtXS247xs ba miềnchốt lô đẹp nhất hôm naychốt số xsmbCHƠI LÔ TÔsoi cau mn hom naychốt lô chuẩndu doan sxmtdự đoán xổ số onlinerồng bạch kim chốt 3 càng miễn phí hôm naythống kê lô gan miền bắcdàn đề lôCầu Kèo Đặc Biệtchốt cầu may mắnkết quả xổ số miền bắc hômSoi cầu vàng 777thẻ bài onlinedu doan mn 888soi cầu miền nam vipsoi cầu mt vipdàn de hôm nay7 cao thủ chốt sốsoi cau mien phi 7777 cao thủ chốt số nức tiếng3 càng miền bắcrồng bạch kim 777dàn de bất bạion newsddxsmn188betw88w88789bettf88sin88suvipsunwintf88five8812betsv88vn88Top 10 nhà cái uy tínsky88iwinlucky88nhacaisin88oxbetm88vn88w88789betiwinf8betrio66rio66lucky88oxbetvn88188bet789betMay-88five88one88sin88bk88xbetoxbetMU88188BETSV88RIO66ONBET88188betM88M88SV88Jun-68Jun-88one88iwinv9betw388OXBETw388w388onbetonbetonbetonbet88onbet88onbet88onbet88onbetonbetonbetonbetqh88mu88Nhà cái uy tínpog79vp777vp777vipbetvipbetuk88uk88typhu88typhu88tk88tk88sm66sm66me88me888live8live8livesm66me88win798livesm66me88win79pog79pog79vp777vp777uk88uk88tk88tk88luck8luck8kingbet86kingbet86k188k188hr99hr99123b8xbetvnvipbetsv66zbettaisunwin-vntyphu88vn138vwinvwinvi68ee881xbetrio66zbetvn138i9betvipfi88clubcf68onbet88ee88typhu88onbetonbetkhuyenmai12bet-moblie12betmoblietaimienphi247vi68clupcf68clupvipbeti9betqh88onb123onbefsoi cầunổ hũbắn cáđá gàđá gàgame bàicasinosoi cầuxóc đĩagame bàigiải mã giấc mơbầu cuaslot gamecasinonổ hủdàn đềBắn cácasinodàn đềnổ hũtài xỉuslot gamecasinobắn cáđá gàgame bàithể thaogame bàisoi cầukqsssoi cầucờ tướngbắn cágame bàixóc đĩa开云体育开云体育开云体育乐鱼体育乐鱼体育乐鱼体育亚新体育亚新体育亚新体育爱游戏爱游戏爱游戏华体会华体会华体会IM体育IM体育沙巴体育沙巴体育PM体育PM体育AG尊龙AG尊龙AG尊龙AG百家乐AG百家乐AG百家乐AG真人AG真人<AG真人<皇冠体育皇冠体育PG电子PG电子万博体育万博体育KOK体育KOK体育欧宝体育江南体育江南体育江南体育半岛体育半岛体育半岛体育凯发娱乐凯发娱乐杏彩体育杏彩体育杏彩体育FB体育PM真人PM真人<米乐娱乐米乐娱乐天博体育天博体育开元棋牌开元棋牌j9九游会j9九游会开云体育AG百家乐AG百家乐AG真人AG真人爱游戏华体会华体会im体育kok体育开云体育开云体育开云体育乐鱼体育乐鱼体育欧宝体育ob体育亚博体育亚博体育亚博体育亚博体育亚博体育亚博体育开云体育开云体育棋牌棋牌沙巴体育买球平台新葡京娱乐开云体育mu88qh88