A secular prototype for Bad Education, Law of Desire is Almodóvar’s funniest and one of his warmest films. His seventh feature is also probably his first really slick endeavour, a well written and gimmick-free piece that has lost the humps and prickles of his more eccentric, low-budget earlier work.

Like Bad Education, Law Of Desire features a lusty performance from the Latin hunk of the moment, in this case Antonio Banderas, who was originally called José Antonio Domínguez Bandera (note the missing “s”) before Almodóvar suggest he change his name. Soon after Law Of Desire, Banderas famously snubbed Madonna in her concert doco Truth Or Dare, only to end up in the arms of the jealous, age-phobic Melanie Griffith a year or two after that.

Also like Bad Education, Law of Desire tells the story of a gay film maker who's a big face on the Madrid club scene, who's between projects when he meets a mysterious, seductive semi-criminal who becomes his obsessive, dangerous lover. Pablo, the filmmaker (played by Eusebio Poncela), is already in love with Juan (Miguel Molina), a distant and ambitious youth who resists sex with Pablo. Pablo's sister Tina (Carmen Maura) is a tranny trying to crack it as an actress while raising Ada, an eight year old girl. Antonio (Banderas) is the obsessive new guy on the scene, who Pablo doesn't take seriously until a jealous rage from Anotnio ends in murder and, finally, a hostage crisis.

Unlike Bad Education, Law of Desire doesn't belong to the boys. More like Talk To Her, this film is hijacked by the sensual, bedevilled heroine, the beautiful Maura, an Almodóvar regular who was previously the heroine of ²What Have I Done To Deserve This? The scene where Tina, restless on a steamy Madrid night, gets hosed down while wearing a skin-tight apricot coloured dress is one of Almodóvar's most iconic and fabulous images, right up there with peroxide-wigged Huma Roja's pixelated face staring out of an enormous billboard in All About My Mother. It's always strange to see Hollywood actresses, for example Hillary Swank, win multiple Oscars and be interrogated by breathless journalists about their "daring" and "complex" roles as men or cross dressers, when Maura and other Almodóvar alma-mater do it regularly, excellently, and with no trumpets or fuss.

As Pablo, Poncela has an uncanny resemblance to William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman. The Latin settings and hair-trigger melodrama of both films had me getting my wires crossed more than once, even in the great sex scene with Banderas, who grimaces adorably each time Pablo vainly tries to stick it in.

Dark Habits
All About My Mother
Labyrinth of Passion
Philadelphia