The Law of Desire - Herzliya Cinematheque

Friday | 9 October | 21:00 | Herzliya Cinematheque

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Carmen Maura, Eusebio Poncela, Antonio Banderas
(102 min, Spanish; Hebrew and English subtitles)

Pablo loves the young and gentle Juan. Juan loves Pablo, but not with all his heart. The bright spots in Pablo’s life are Tina, his transgender sister (Carmen Maura), and Ada, her adopted daughter. Into this fragile family balance bursts Antonio (Antonio Banderas), a passionate and violent young man who falls in love with Pablo and refuses to accept that Pablo’s heart still belongs to Juan.

In the 1980s, long before the age of DVDs and streaming, rumors spread about a wild Spanish director making steamy films. His name was Pedro Almodóvar. Here, the young Almodóvar created a sophisticated melodrama, with one foot planted firmly in trash culture and the other drawing from Jean Cocteau, Ingmar Bergman—and essentially anything else within reach. He explores love, desire, control, and the roles we play within relationships, mixing high and low without asking anyone’s permission. This is an Almodóvar entirely different from the one we know today: stylized—yes, but also naked and exposed, blunt to the point of embarrassment, heartbreaking, and brave.

When the film was screened in Israel in 1988, the local critics received it with knives drawn. Aharon Dolev wrote: “There ought to be some law against ragamuffins”; Hezi Leskly: “Annoying in an uninteresting way”; Amir Rotem: “Simply pathetic”; and Tamar Gelbetz contributed the immortal line: “Oh, and that lighthouse—how phallic it is.” The first screening run was brief. Since then, the film and its director have amassed a huge audience of fans and admirers.

Winner of the Teddy Award for Best Film – Berlin Festival, 1987