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Eusebio Poncela (1945-2025): LAW OF DESIRE and RAPTURE

Rafael Aviña

The death of General Francisco Franco in 1975 brought about a radical shift in Spain's social structure, and, above all, in its cinema. Censorship was abolished, and it was the era of sexual liberation and the explosion of pornographic cinema. At the same time, new and young filmmakers emerged who sought to leave behind the ghost of Francoism or confront it with a renewed and critical gaze, while addressing new issues such as crime, drugs, women's freedom, sexual awakening, homosexuality, and modernity.

It was precisely during this transformation of Spanish cinema that a couple of seminal works emerged, which shaped and represented the two main strands of this vast body of film work, ranging from the so-called “The Madrilenian Scene”¹ to more recent cinema (The Good Boss, The Beasts, Manticore, Alcarràs, Undercover, and more). Rapture (1979), by Iván Zulueta, somehow foreshadowed the most avant-garde, original, and unclassifiable Spanish cinema, which even encompasses seemingly minor genres such as fantasy in all its ramifications. And Law of Desire (1987), by Pedro Almodóvar, stands as a representative of the other great trend: farce, erotic, and romantic melodrama, where emotions disturb and devastate. Alongside these two masterful narrative and aesthetic proposals is the work of their performers, particularly the remarkable protagonist of both: Madrid-born Eusebio Poncela, who died on August 27, 2025, who plays two tormented film directors in both films.

A film, theater, and television actor born to Republican parents, Poncela was a problematic child who frequently ran away from home and was expelled from school. It is said that he aspired to be an actor from the age of three and ultimately graduated from the Royal Higher College of Performing Arts. In the mid-1960s, his life revolved around theaters, while he also practiced gymnastics and yoga. In the early 1970s, he entered the world of cinema and television. His first major role was in Rapture, the second and last film by the atypical filmmaker Iván Zulueta—Uno, dos, tres, el escondite inglés (1969)—a work which chronicled the crisis of Poncela and Zulueta themselves, and their problem with drugs.

Poncela plays José Sirgado, a self-destructive filmmaker working on the editing of his latest film, Serie B. However, his heroin addiction causes his perspective on reality to shift, placing him on the border between dreams and wakefulness. Unable to get over his ex-partner (Cecilia Roth), he reconnects with his young friend Pedro (Will More), who is obsessed with finding a turning point: “the rapture” in the images he captures with a Super 8 camera. This mind-blowing and daring cult classic is considered one of the most important films in Spanish cinema—intense, experimental, and misunderstood at the time. Poncela, in his role as Sirgado, is swept away by sex, drugs, and the cinematic image like a kind of vampiric possession that stimulates his desires and obsessions

After Operación ogro, Werther, and the successful TV series Los gozos y las sombras and Pepe Carvalho, in which he played the detective of the same name from Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's novels, he appeared in Matador (1986), in which Almodóvar abandoned the sensationalism of his early stories to create an unusual film combining telekinesis, sex, and bullfighting. However, a year later, he filmed his masterpiece Law of Desire. This film is about the transformations of Pablo Quintero, a gay filmmaker played by Poncela, whose sister, Tina (Carmen Maura), had been a man 20 years earlier and underwent gender transition because she had sexual relations with her father. However, Pablo, who is in love with Juan (Miguel Molina), meets Antonio (Antonio Banderas), an impulsive and obsessive young man who will drag him into the abyss and change the story of the siblings.

A story that is extremely close to the director and therefore the most authentic in his filmography, Law of Desire is the portrait of a passion taken to tragic extremes that found in Poncela the perfect alter ego of Almodóvar, who manages to go beyond simple provocation to delve into darkness in a labyrinth of honest and adult passions. Through an intense romantic and detective story about the search for love and tenderness, it explores marginal and lonely characters who defy traditional values, including family, sex, religion, and institutions. This is a film that captivates the audience with its frankness and total absence of hypocrisy in referring to the means of desire and love, and in which. Among other songs, "Lo dudo", performed by Los Panchos, can be heard

Other notable appearances by Poncela include: El arreglo, El Dorado, The Dumbfounded King, 
Martin (Hache), Sleepwalker, Intact, Vidas privadas, and Remake, among a filmography of more than 90 titles. May he rest in peace.

Translated by Abigail Puebla

Translator's Notes

1. TN: The Madrid Scene (Spanish: La Movida Madrileña) was a countercultural movement that took place mainly in Madrid after Francisco Franco's death. The movement happened during Spain's economic growth and the creation of a new Spanish identity.