As referenced in Professor Sergio Rigoletto’s presentation, Almodóvar’s film, Law of Desire, can be described as queer in the most radical, expansive, and spectacular ways. Almodóvar’s works are not concerned with the politics of gay identity but rather the explosive fluidity of anti-identitarianism—essentially moving away from technical ‘gay’ terminology as modern inventions, to the body of grounded queerness: the very messy queer world.
The confusion or rather its disruption of film technicalities (films that should follow certain narrative structures, genres, etc.) leads into Queer Archetypes and storylines: comedy, drama, romance, absurdist, satire. These are all analogous to broader Queer storytelling. This is essential especially considering the geopolitical landscape of ‘queerness’ today. It is becoming a cultural happenstance of the mainstream without the contextual significance of its historical proportions or broader understanding, byways of becoming an opening for anybody—which, isn’t to say that the queer community isn’t for everyone, it’s the strange phenomena of commodification.
In Michael Warner’s, Fear of a Queer Planet:
“so many people […] have shifted their self-identification from ‘gay’ to ‘queer’. The preference for ‘queer’ represents, among other things, an aggressive impulse of generalization; it rejects a minoritizing logic of toleration or simple political interest representation in favor of a more thorough resistance to regimes of the normal […] the insistence on ‘queer’ as term defined.”
This isn’t to say I agree entirely with Warner’s statements. I think ‘queer’ is the new ‘gay’. The generalization of either binary or non-binary peoples referencing themselves as ‘gay’ to now broadly ‘queer’. I find that the real threat or insistence of mainstream queerness is allyship convergence within the queer community. It’s not enough for them to aid or love or support, it’s a strange psychological interference that they need to be just as much a part of the community even if they aren’t. I know many cis-heterosexual people at the University who have started attaching ‘they/them’ pronouns to their profiles and in-person greetings. And in questioning, it’s not that they are questioning their own identity but resisting the binary system that we live in. It’s important to acknowledge the constraints of having to live in the binary, but also separate resistance will self-actualization.
With that being said, Almodóvar cold opens the film with a selective, definitive audience in mind, with certain expectations of love and desire that he truly does turn on its conventional head. The visual capture of a young man naked in bed, breaching climax, in a film within a film voyeuristic technique, Almodóvar not only undresses his actors or themes of love but the eyes of the audience as well. There’s a choice to be made: stay and relish in the delight of his world or traditionally, leave.
What I love most about Almodóvar’s work is the depiction of clubs as queer solace and isolated, a cherished paradise for queer individuals. It’s unique and specific and niche and could be considered pretentious. Almodóvar weaves the tenderness and pain of queerness through found families and lost love with the confrontation and subtle embracement of spirituality alongside obsession as repressed sexuality and the campiness of life as absurdism.
The depiction of conversational intimacy is so beautiful, to put it plainly. It is visually accompanied by safe sex practices and instinctual self-care by making lubrication centerfold and shrouding sex in shadows to honestly maintain the piety of queer sex. It’s religious and contains practice and it’s warm. Almodóvar’s sanctity for love is what drives the film by leaning into absurdist sentimentalities. We see this through characters wanting to continue questionably toxic relationships (a murderer, to be frank), but this is girdled by very real emotional pulls through captivity, sadness, and understanding of the angst of the unknown. I see this specifically through Pablo and Antonio’s relationship. The push and pull of Pietà imagery embodying mother/son, teacher/student. guidance/listener archetypes. Antonio is an extremist embodiment of repression and the anxiety of sexual awakening and inability to express oneself without carving out the past partner to begin anew. It’s very much something I would contribute to the baby-gay syndrome and the first queer relationship any queer person gets into. A god complex can emerge, and it’s tragic. The weight of the world lies in your hands and you don’t want it to fall away. It’s like being born again. And Almodóvar immerses us in so compassionately.
When you watch Almodóvar’s films, you can envision a world where queer is everywhere. His work is spectacular. It’s funny. It’s dramatic. It’s sexy. It’s surprising. It’s romantic. It’s tense. It’s bliss. It’s camp. t’s lovely and melodramatic—and a joy of queer cinema.
This is exactly the kind of film I yearn to make but do in fact write.
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