Oeuvre is an in-depth examination of the entire body of work of an important director.
Pedro Almodóvar’s sixth film, Law of Desire (1987), opens with a shot of a young man who is commanded by an off-screen voice to talk to and pleasure himself. The camera pulls back and we see two men recording sound, one doing the dirty talk, the other exaggerating the moans of pleasure. It’s a scene that combines a number of Almodóvar’s favorite elements: sex, artifice, film, TV and a hot naked guy. Law of Desire comes after the darker, more unhinged, sex and death obsessed Matador and before his international breakthrough, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. All three feature a pre-stardom Antonio Banderas; perhaps scholars someday refer to these as the Banderas years. At the time, Almodóvar called it his “most carefully made and most sober film,” as well as a “melodrama which breaks the rules of the genre” There’s always been a melodramatic element in his work, but often veering towards the more farcical and soap opera-like, while here it’s more fully realized and unified.
Almodóvar’s ’80s films can be approached as pairs; the first two are fizzy and a little frivolous, Dark Habits and What Have I Done to Deserve This? add more emotional depth and complex characterization while Matador and Law of Desire are shocking erotic thrillers. Desire is a genre film on one level, but done in a typically skewed Almodóvar fashion. It starts out as a flamboyant, comic mix of melodrama and soap opera, but then veers into more conventional psychological-erotic thriller territory. The familiar elements include a gay film director with some drugs problems (Eusebio Poncela), his actress sister who also has a drug problem and used to be a man (Carmen Maura) a young girl they play surrogate parents to, the director’s lover who lives in a lighthouse and a fiery, unbalanced young man, played by Antonio Banderas, who develops a dangerous obsession (aren’t they always?) with the director. Not enough for you? How about some murder, sex and amnesia? As with many of his films, there’s a balance (or imbalance) between the gaudier plot elements and the warmth with which he treats his characters and their messy personal lives.
The relationship with the young girl, who becomes fascinated by the Virgin Mary, is especially tender. Almodóvar regular Maura is exuberant and sympathetic as the actress who used to be a man and she’s the highlight of the movie. The other actors, including Banderas, are less compelling. Part of the enjoyment of watching his older films is in picking out characters, scenes, motifs and plots that recur in his later, more polished work; actors and actresses, scenes set in hospitals, religion and the church, odd families, film noir elements and the theater/plays (Maura’s character performs in a Cocteau play), all echo through his filmography. Like much of his ’80s films, Desire is a little uneven and doesn’t have the mastery of his best work. Banderas murders the director’s lover and it has a Hitchcockian thriller feel at times: it especially recalls the torrid and obsessive Vertigo. It does have some parallels with the more complex and deeply felt Bad Education, such as a director character, thriller elements and an interest in gender/sexuality. Almodóvar expertly arranged those elements into something coherent, meaningful and poignant, but here it’s less assured and messier.
Desire loses something when it become more outrageous and unrealistic and in the final scene, where Banderas takes hostages in order to see the director, is unconvincing and clichéd. As with Matador, Almodóvar seems to run out of plot and just end with a flurry of sex and death. Yet he makes it appears that there was something pure about the obsessive love, somewhat like in later works likeTalk to Her.
by Lukas Sherman
Other Almodóvar Oeuvre Features
What Have I Done to Deserve This?
