You shouldn't believe everything you read on video boxes. It is not a "riotous comedy," it's a deeply moving meditation on desire, from physical desire to the highest kinds of love. All of the characters are searching for it, and one of the questions raised by the movie is "What is it worth?" The final scene, in which Antonio and Pablo are in the apartment, just before Antonio kills himself, is the the linchpin of the movie. Love is serious, it is not a game, and love is worth dying for. That is why Pablo throws the typewriter out the window--everything he has written hasn't been worth the paper it is written on because it assumes that love is merely a toy. In the final scene, when Pablo takes up the dead Antonio in his arms and weeps, the visual image is a lamentation, like the Renaissance paintings of Mary holding Christ in her arms after he has been brought down from the cross. Of course it is funny too in places, but funny in a way that elaborates on and deepens the main theme of the movie, "What is love worth." What Antonio teaches Pablo is that love is worth everything. What you may have been confused by is the tone of the movie, which is operatic. This is not about an investigation of individual character. Like much opera, it investigates a deeply felt--and confusing--human emotion. It is one of the great gay movies, perhaps the greatest one.
Review of Law of Desire
