The Almodóvar Series: 1982’s ‘Labyrinth of Passion’

Last month, we at the Water Cooler asked our listeners to nominate entries for our Most Iconic Directors series. This new series takes the place of the Our Favorite Movies series, which ran over the past two years. Well, you voted, and the winner was Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar. Over the remainder of 2020, we will offer up one of his major films per month, doubling up once to fit in 12 feature films. First up is Laberinto de pasiones or Labyrinth of Passion.

Almodóvar’s second feature film, Labyrinth of Passion marks his first collaboration with Antonio Banderas who appears in a small supporting role. The film itself nearly defies description, full of Almodóvar’s penchant for elaborate, wacky plots and colorful supporting characters. Hated by critics on initial release, the film became a cult favorite and eventually quadrupled its production budget thanks to extended special screenings. We talk about our reactions to the strange film and what initial signs of the overall Almodóvar canon we spot.

If you love Pedro Almodóvar and want to join us for a future episode, please contact Joey (@joeymoser83) on Twitter. We’d love to have you!

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!

Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)