Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2123 in VHS
• Released on: 1995-08-01
• Rating: Unrated
• Formats: Color, EP, HiFi Sound, Special Edition, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

From The New Yorker
Not quite as kinky as it sounds, but you can't have everything. Temistocles Lopez's movie is a New York update of the Max Ophuls classic "La Ronde,'' itself adapted from an Arthur Schnitzler play. The carrousel structure remains, tinged with the risks of a more treacherous age: A meets B, B meets C, and so on. Some are married, some are gay, some never exchange a word; Lopez rings the changes with levity and charm, and if each encounter leaves you wanting to know more, that only sharpens the melancholy of the film, the knowledge that satisfaction hangs just out of reach. The very act of repetition brings with it a clutch of sad gags-''Why can't I just get laid like everyone else?" asks a disgruntled Grace Zabriskie, as the wife of Malcolm McDowell. The performances are a mixed bunch, as you might expect, and the dialogue occasionally drops into laziness; one had hoped to have heard the last of "It's tough out there on the streets.'' Lopez's movie doesn't even like the streets; it's happier inside-in a bedroom, a studio, or a church. There are moments of exquisite, sombre half-lighting, just right for the uncertain needs of its characters; and one linkup, of voyeurs at their windows, is both the loneliest and funniest sex scene of the year. A slight and rather ramshackle movie, it's never as arousing as it hopes to be, but then Lopez is that uncommon creature, a director who is most at home with the fleeting and the failed. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Where's the DVD?
I hope this movie comes out on DVD soon. I can't wait to add it to my collection, plus I think this flick will eventually become the classic it should be. I also hope they release it with the original poster that October films put out for the theatrical release, not the soft-porn cover for the video release that must have scared away the more sophisticated viewers to which this flick will appeal. For those of you who don't know about it, this is one of the most daring, tastefully sexy movies ever made. It has 14 main characters all linked through erotic encounters and it goes from sad to comic to exhilarating. It features Linda Fiorentino's and Malcolm McDowell's best performances in years and a bunch of great younger actors. Its sort of a chronicle of urban life in the 90's made with intelligence and wit. It also looks great and will remain an incisive and sensual testament of a place and a time for generations to come.

Excellent film
In spite of its packaging, this is not a porno flick! (If it were, it would leave alot to be desired.) Great film-making. I won't say any more, but if you want a sensual and very, very interesting movie, pick this. Great sound track too (wish it were on CD!).

"Desire" is an overlooked gem of a film
I saw this above-average film in '92 in L.A. No one there in the film business seemed to give a fig for it, but then I was working amongst some callous, unimaginative and wholly uncreative suits who were only interested in the sales on ties at Fred Segal's.

Lopez' "lost" film intrigued me because of its use of an original music score entwined with it's "La Ronde" rip-off structure (which, itself, was not original). It also has a dark edge that I found amusing, having come out of the 80s intact after watching so many friends die, and others turn into raving yuppie miscreants.

Needless to say, the premise of the story and it's Hitchcockian payoff is neither unfounded nor unrealistic: 'tis the way the Big A all happened, in a fashion. X meets Y meets Z meets C then C screws X etc etc. Of course, for the more 'mindful', this is also how thought transfer occurs and makes for so-called 'reality'.

Fiorentino has a small part, but she captivates as a chanteuse crooning Marianne Faithful's "A Stranger on Earth", a downbeat, wonderful song. Malcolm Mc Dowell does a splendid turn in this film after so many years of laboring on B projects, and Assumpta Serna turns up with Elias Koteas (Exotica, The Adjuster), one of my favorite actors of this period.

Yes, it has some problems: its drags some in the mid-section and must battle its own episodic structure, and one music tune, "The Big Boys", well, it's not the best. It sounded like it belonged in DePalma's old "Phantom of the Paradise".

Why no DVD yet? The Bean Counters at Fred Segal, dah-ling. And the packaging for the recent VHS--it looks like some 'Wild Orchid' soft-porn crap (with all due respect to the talented Mickey Rourke - this was a bad choice back then). This film is sexy, but it is NOT soft-porn or 'Two Moon Junction' (love that title).

Give CHAIN OF DESIRE a look and a listen. It's a nice time capsule. I hope to see more from this director someday. He has promise.