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La Ley del deseo  (1987)

Law of Desire
 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093412/

THIS IS A FULL SCREEN DVD TRANSFER FROM
Law of Desire or La ley del deseo (in original Spanish) is a 1987 film by Pedro Almodóvar. Considered to be Almodóvar's first explicitly gay film, it focuses on a complex love triangle between three men. It follows the more serious tone set by his film Matador, exploring the ways in which society represses an individual's true desires with tragic consequences. The movie is currently rated NC-17 in the USA.

The film was released the same year that Fatal Attraction came out. A major American film with a similar plot about a one night stand gone wrong. (Although with heterosexual characters.)

Almodóvar solidified his creative independence when he started the production company El Deseo, together with his brother Agustín Almodóvar, who has also had several cameo roles in his films. From 1986 on, Pedro Almodóvar has produced his own films.

The first movie that came out from El Deseo was the aptly named Law of Desire (La Ley del Deseo). The narrative follows three main characters: a gay film director who embarks on a new project; his sister, an actress who used to be his brother (played by Carmen Maura), and a repressed murderously obsessive stalker (played by Antonio Banderas).

The film presents a gay love triangle and drew away from most representations of homosexuals in films. These characters are neither coming out nor confront sexual guilt or homophobia; they are already liberated, like the homosexuals in Fassbinder’s films. Almodóvar said about Law of Desire : " It's the key film in my life and career. It deals with my vision of desire, something that's both very hard and very human. By this I mean the absolute necessity of being desired and the fact that in the interplay of desires it's rare that two desires meet and correspond".

Almodóvar's films rely heavily on the capacity of his actors to pull through difficult roles into a complex narrative. In Law of Desire Carmen Maura plays the role of Tina, a woman who used to be a man. Almodóvar explains: "Carmen is required to imitate a woman, to savour the imitation, to be conscious of the kitsch part that there is in the imitation, completely renouncing parody, but not humour."

Elements from Law of Desire grew into the basis for two later films: Carmen Maura appears in a stage production of Cocteau’s The Human Voice, which inspired Almodóvar’s next film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown; and Tina's confrontation scene with an abusive priest formed a partial genesis for Bad Education.


Howrver this film is at its core a story about love and the power and falsity of words.  I first saw this film at its American realease with a friend of mine from Bogota who was moved to tears both by the story's finale and by the soundtrack; he kept saying, 'this is so beautiful, and cant explain it in English but it is so beautiful.


 Eusebio Poncela ...  Pablo Quintero 
 Carmen Maura ...  Tina Quintero 
 Antonio Banderas ...  Antonio Benítez 
 Miguel Molina ...  Juan Bermúdez 
 Fernando Guillén ...  Inspector de policía 
 Manuela Velasco ...  Ada, niña 
 Nacho Martínez ...  Doctor Martín 
 Bibiana Fernández ...  Ada - madre (as Bibí Andersen) 
 Helga Liné ...  Madre de Antonio 
 Germán Cobos ...  El Cura 
 Fernando Guillén Cuervo ...  Policía, chico 
 Marta Fernández Muro ...  Una Groupi 
 Lupe Barrado ...  Enfermera 
 Alfonso Vallejo ...  Sargento 
 Maruchi León ...  Hermana de Juan 

Soundtrack:

"Déjame recordar"
Written by José Sabre Marroquín
Performed by Ignacio Villa (as Bola de Nieve)

"Lo dudo"
Written by Chucho Navarro
Performed by Trío Los Panchos

"Ne me quitte pas"
Written by Jacques Brel
Performed by Maysa Matarazzo