Massoud H
This movie is crazy and enjoyable.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
12/30/22
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Audience Member
Underrated in Almodovar's oeuvre
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
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Audience Member
Sexilia (Cecilia Roth) is a pop star and sex addict; Riza Niro (Imanol Arias) is the gay son of the Emperor of Tiran. Both are strolling around Madrid's flea market, aiming to pick up lovers. Sexilia takes two men for an orgy, where she is the only woman. In the hope of curing her nymphomania and her fear of the sun, she is undergoing psychotherapy. However, her psychoanalyst, Susana, is far more interested in sleeping with Sexila's father, Doctor de la Peña, a gynecologist specializing in artificial insemination. As the doctor is frigid, Susana does not have a chance with him. One of Doctor de la Peña's patients is Princess Toraya (Helga Liné), the ex-wife of the former Emperor of Tiran. Flicking through a magazine, Toraya discovers that her stepson Riza Nero is also in town. Thanks to treatment by Sexilia's father, Toraya is now fertile for the first time in her life. Since the emperor's sperm is currently unavailable to her, she will settle for that of his son, Riza, whom she attempts to track down. In Madrid, Riza is living incognito, constantly wearing a wig and dark glasses. He gets involved first with Fabio, a young junkie transvestite. Later he meets Sadec (Antonio Banderas) on the street and the two go to Sadec's place. Ironically, Sadec is a member of a group of terrorists looking for Riza, but fails to recognize him in disguise. When Riza realizes that Sadec is also from Tiran, he decides to change his hair and clothes in order to protect his anonymity. With Fabio's help, Riza transforms his appearance to a punk. Sexilia and Riza, who knew each other when they were children, meet again, when Riza, disguised as "Johnny", is performing as the lead singer with a punk band in the absence of one of their regulars. That night, they fall in love but do not sleep together. The two opt for a chaste relationship since each wants this relationship to be "different". Making time in her busy schedule for her laundry, Sexilia meets Queti (Marta Fernández Muro), a young woman who works in a dry-cleaner owned by her father. Her mother skipped out on her father a few weeks earlier and the father, who takes Vitapens to stimulate his sex drive and potency, pretends to mistake Queti for her mother and binds her to the bed and rapes her on alternate days, despite the fact that Queti regularly laces his tea with a libido-suppressing chemical called Benzamuro. In search of consolation, Queti dresses up in the clothes of her role model Sexilia. One day Sexilia spots Queti in the street wearing one of her outfits and confronts her. They become friends. Queti tells Sexilia about the problem with her father and Sexilia tells her that she cannot stop thinking about Riza. Sexilia and Riza mutual adoration has "cured" Riza's compulsive homosexuality and Sexilia's nymphomania. Queti and Sexilia hatch a plan: they agree to swap identities so that Queti can escape her father's sexual abuse and take on the role of Sexilia for real. This would allow Sexilia to escape with her lover Riza. However, Toraya finally catches up with Riza and seduces him. When Sexilia goes to Riza's hotel, she finds Toraya and Riza together. Riza tries to convince her that sex with Toraya was only practice for the real thing with her, but Sexilia is distraught. The knowledge of Riza's infidelity drives Sexilia to her psychoanalyst. Under therapy, Sexilia discovers that Toraya was responsible for both her childhood traumas and her nymphomania in the same incident that made Riza gay. Rejected by her father, she had had sex with a group of boys on the beach, while Riza looked on. Sexilia meets up with Queti, who after plastic surgery has taken her place. Queti persuades Sexilia to give Riza another chance. Sadec, who has a highly developed sense of smell and has fallen head over heels in love with Riza, is looking for him everywhere. Sadec's roommates, Islamic extremists, plan to kidnap Riza. Queti warns Sexilia and Riza of the danger and, when Toraya and the Islamic extremists arrive at the airport, Riza and Sexilia are already on the plane bound for Contadora, a tropical island. Back in Madrid, Queti, now Sexilia's look-alike, sleeps with the latter's father, whom she has always fancied; he, believing her to be Sexilia, achieves his aim of truly loving his daughter. At the airport Sadec and his companions, having lost Riza, kidnap Toraya. On the airplane Riza and Sexilia make love for the first time...
"Labyrinth of Passion" was made during the golden age of the Madrid movida, between 1977 and 1983, and almost all the key figures of the movement - painters, musicians - are part of the large cast. Depicting the hedonism of underground music venues and gay cruising grounds, the daring script shows Almodóvar's enthusiastic embrace of Spain's new-found freedom of expression. For this reason, the film retains an emblematic power in Spain. It ran for ten years on a midnight run at Madrid's Alphaville cinema, but was released in the United States, England, France and Italy only after the success of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. This was Almodóvar's second film and independently produced with a shoestring budget which allowed for better production values than his previous film "Pepi, Luci, Bom", and to employ a more complex narrative. Although badly received by Spanish film critics, "Labyrinth of Passion" was a modest success and quickly reached cult film status. The film is an outrageous look at love and sex, framed in Madrid of the early 1980s, during the so-called Movida madrileña, a period of sexual adventurousness between the dissolution of Franco's authoritarian regime and the onset of AIDS consciousness. "Positively bristles with vibrant colors and a wildly comic sexual energy," wrote Marsha Kinder in Film Comment. Nevertheless, critical reaction was generally negative. Writing in El Periodico, JL. Guarner suggested that: "The story is nothing more than a series of episodes, summarily linked, and what we have come to call cinema plays little part in it. The bizarre plot does not live up to its promise, for its weakened by parallel subplots which weave in and out of it more or less haphazardly." Almodóvar said about "Labyrinth of Passion": "I like the film even if it could have been better made. The main problem is that the story of the two leads is much less interesting than the stories of all the secondary characters. But precisely because there are so many secondary characters, there's a lot in the film I like." This is I reckon clear evidence of a young Almodóvar that hadn´t yet found his way of making film with a flow and with a main plot that can handle all the subplots. It´s very messy in the storyline and it´s hard to keep track of all the crazy characters that move in and out of the film and the film becomes very scattered. And his attempt of adding as much "chock value" as possible shines through and it becomes over ambitious and a bit too much in my eyes. But, at the same time I do like the fact that he goes all in with so many things concerning sexuality, love and the psyche he wants to shed a light on in "Labyrinth of Passion".
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/21/23
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Audience Member
(G)
7.4
[Pedro Almodóvar]
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
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Audience Member
Better than his first, "Labyrinth of Passion" starts slow, builds slow, and has an over-the-top obnoxious finale that actually made the grueling 75 minutes prior worth it.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
Full Review
Audience Member
a early effort shows just why he is so big now
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
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