Given my temper, I turned for reference to Warren Beatty and Barbara Loden in ‘Splendor in the Grass.’ I’ve always been sensitive to stories of siblings, even in those with a good main love story, my interest was always on the siblings. I didn’t know what type of fraternity to opt for men when I started writing the screenplay.
Intertextuality: Splendor in the Grass and Paris, TexasĪ self-conscious director, Almodovar is aware of those links, as he himself has said: “I focused ‘What Have I Done’ on the Mother figure, and I’m focusing on the Brothers now. “Law of Desire” became the first Almodovar film to be sold right away worldwide. Grounded in the specificity of Spanish culture, the film was largely acclaimed after its world premiere at the 1987 Berlin Film Fest, where it played to enthusiastic response.
Made in 1987, Law of Desire (“La Ley Del Deseo”) boasts a more complex narrative and more intriguing characters than those of “Matador,” but to me, it’s a less enjoyable movie. Having dealt with straight sexuality in “Matador,” it was logical for Alomodovar to follow up with a similarly themed erotic thriller, only this time set in a specifically gay milieu and dealing with the more particular varieties and vagaries of homosexual love.
