Almadovar has long duped gullible American audiences into believing he is both talented and witty, when the reality is Europeans have known for decades that he's just a master at shock value. La Ley del Deseo was one of his first gay-themed successes outside of Spain, and while Almadovar can be credited for breaking this particular barrier, he can NOT be credited with doing so without adhering to the unspoken "traditional" gay formula-- that being that one, if not both protagonists had to die tragically. Because, you know...gay. At the time, this movie was a laugh riot for all Latin American queens who loved the dirty jokes, as well as all the ultra-liberal art-types who were just learning how "cool" the whole gay scene was (remember: this is in the mid-80s when all mainstream people focused on was AIDS in the gay community). So, if you are one of those people who likes seeing all the gay "dirty laundry" (random sex, drugs, self-hatred, pornography, unhealthy relationships) thrust upon you in a big screen for shock value, then enjoy, as this film is Almodovar at his most typical.

I once read that Pedro Almodovar wanted to reach out his audience via their hearts, their minds and their genitals, with this, my first experience with the director, he most certainly sticks to his aims. The film opens with a young man masturbating upon the orders of his director, from here on in the tone is set for what is, a bonkers, yet highly entertaining picture.The plot revolves around the sexual adventures of gay director Pablo Quintero and his transsexual sister, Tina, her struggle with men and the duty of bringing up a young daughter who she fathered when she was a he!, still with me?. Into their lives comes Antonio Benitez, he's sexually fascinated with Pablo but gets his nose put out of joint upon learning of Pablo's love of another guy called Juan, things are about to get darkly unnerving.Law Of Desire is stylish and full of tricky eccentricities, it's also very much in your face with its blatant urge to be seedy, however it's backed up by wonderful performances from Antoino Banderas {Benitez}, Carmen Maura {Tina} and Eusebio Poncela {Pablo}, whilst it's director is clearly a talent that was, at this time in his life, making films with attitude and a devil may care spirit. 7/10

I first saw snippets of this film ages ago and finally saw the whole film. Prior to watching this film, I've read countless hyped-up, mixed reviews over it. People say it's a great comedy, others say it's a kinky, perverted piece of work. I guess when this film was released in 1986, people didn't know what to make of it. And now after seeing this film, I don't blame them.I watched this film originally expecting a thriller. It has some thriller elements in it, especially towards the end, but the main plot - a gay film director pursued by a psychopath - is often overshadowed by the quite inappropriate story of the director's "sister" and her struggle to raise an ex-lover's daughter.You can see here a young Antonio Banderas as the 'baddie' of this film. Apparantely this was the first film where Antonio performs very hot sex scenes with another male actor.So is the film good? Yes... only if you're a fan of any of the cast, or of the director, or of dark kinky Spainish films in general. What are the flaws?... well there aren't any that I can pick out. It's a decent film with decent directing. Nothing to get too excited over.Perfect to watch on a quiet Saturday night.

This is not Almodovar's greatest film. The plot and script tends to melodrama, the acting is a little two-dimensional as a result. Almodovar returns to some themes over and over again in his films, so this film can be seen as an early glimpse of some of the key themes in All About My Mother and Talk To Her, both of which are great films in my view.But this film is worth seeing. The cinematography and the music are great. Almodovar's Madrid is always lovely to look at. And the plot takes its obvious and inevitable course at reasonable pace, so you don't get bored.