Look, this isn't Almodóvar’s best film. His second feature, it's a pretty low-budget, low frills affair and the signature kinks are shrill and unhewn. But it does feature the director himself in a sterling supporting role, taking to the stage in punkish drag to sing his self-penned "Suck It To Me" and performing a basic accompanying dance. Now, that's not something you can see everyday.

Riza Niro (Imanol Arias) is the son of the Emperor of Tiran, an unstable state on the verge of collapse. He's been sent to Madrid to hide out, and, while he's there, affects the lives of nymphomaniac Sexillia (Cecilia Roth), model Fabio (Fanny McNamara, also known as Fabio de Miguel) and an assortment of Madrid's fabulous nobodies. Drugged out orgies, all night parties and underground punk music clubs are par for the course, and a sub plot about genetic engineering hangs around the edges.

The pitch of the movie is set at "hysterical" and a number of scenes are really funny. Fabio's photo shoot, where he's posing for a porn mag making love with an electric drill is one. Other moments fall into strangely unfunny slapstick - one is replete with a character slipping on a banana peel. The whole thing is very 1982, and looks very much like one of Prince's early videos. You can imagine Madonna sneaking in to a Manhattan art house cinema to watch it. It would have been the latest thing then; she'd have loved it, or would have said she did.

Almodóvar described it as "a movie that will not contribute anything to the culture of anybody" and it's hard to argue with that. I had to look up a synopsis of the story after I'd finished watching it, and I can't remember a great deal of detail from the movie, and even the marvellous Cecilia Roth seems a little astray. But Labyrinth of Passion is now a valuable "early work" text - anyone with an interest in Almodóvar's artistic evolution will get something out of it.

Look at it this way: it sure beats Funny Felix.

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