MikePadgett.com

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1987
• 

There’s much to like about the performances in Law of Desire. Eusebio Poncela plays a marvellously ambivalent, sexually ambiguous film director as his insouciance gives way to raw emotion while Carmen Maura takes well to her role as his gold-hearted, rough diamond sister.

But the real turn here is delivered by Antonio Banderas who, in portraying his second of three exemplary Almodóvar nutters, does a fine job of representing reckless jealousy with a worrying streak of sincerity.

So much for great acting, because the story holds about as much water as a bucket with a hole. Nevertheless, Almodóvar manages to plug it for a while at least and his treatment of similar themes - in 2004’s Bad Education - would prove more fruitful next time.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1983
• 

This colourful film, about a nightclub singer on the run who holes up in a convent only to find the nuns are worse sinners than her, is the first of Almodóvar’s oeuvre made with full production.

As if on cue, the set design is suddenly marvellous, the story detail considerably richer than previous efforts and Carmen Maura and Julieta Serrano run a tight ship with the script.

Ultimately, Dark Habits is a rather blunt instrument used to poke fun at religion. The dissipated sisters are comical and their lifestyles shocking, but the involving humanity of the director’s later work is still barely hinted at.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1988
• 

This is a decorated film - five Goyas and an Oscar nomination - and an international breakthrough for the director, but it didn’t sit too well with me.

Almodóvar’s screwball comedy cocktail has all of the lurid colour but lacks the bitter edge that adds bite to his more emotive works. After a promising start, the pace suddenly feels rather rushed, with too much plot crammed into 90 minutes.

Nevertheless, there are some outstanding features. When protagonist Pepa, a dubbing actor, shows up at work she must dub Joan Crawford in the key scene in Johnny Guitar, her deserting lover (and colleague) having already done the Sterling Hayden part. It’s a rare soulful moment, masterfully delivered by Carmen Maura leading another solid cast: Banderas would make a great post-pubescent, oversexed Adrian Mole and Julieta Serrano is delightfully insane as Lucía.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 2006
• 

Almodóvar ‘returns’ once more with an(other) extraordinary story about women and he coaxes a fine performance from leading lady Penélope Cruz.

In Volver, the director substitutes the gaucheness of Bad Education for the emotionally involving characterisation of All About My Mother and the film is predictably unpredictable, with typically serpentine plotting.

Ultimately though, it’s the winning performance of Cruz, galvanised by wonderful support from Lola Dueñas and the inimitable Carmen Maura, that steals your heart.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1981
• 

This is where it all began, the first in a long line of zany, colourful and passionate tales whose collective carnival forms the prodigious output of Almodóvar.

Pepi, Luci, Bom gels remarkably considering the conditions in which it was shot. It’s the story of three very different women in a world bursting with the kind of firework deviance banned by the Franco era.

The film is very much a product of its era and it hasn’t aged too well, but it’s worth watching if only to see the dawn of Almodóvar’s vision before his growing confidence (and budgets) made it look so easy!