Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.
Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), the great Spanish-born surrealist director, was born in the small village of Calanda, Spain, but his family moved soon after his birth to Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon. Luis started school at the age of six, attending mostly the Jesuit College, where he remained until age sixteen. When he later enrolled in the University of Madrid, he wished to pursue the study of music (he played the violin), but his father vetoed that choice, pushing him into science instead. At the University, Buñuel became involved with a highly talented circle of friends that included Federico Garcia Lorca, Salvador Dali, and Morena Villa. This young group of avant guard artists conversed frequently and collaborated on some literary publications. They were inspired by the surrealist movement that was emerging in France and became the leaders of the Spanish version of Surrealism that became the inspiration for advances not only in the arts in Spain, but in the natural and social sciences as well.
After seeing Fritz Lang’s film Destiny, Buñuel was inspired to turn his attention to a career in film. He took a position as an assistant to Jean Epstein in the 1920’s and produced his first experimental work, Un Chien andalou, in 1928, with some of his old friends. Two years later he hit pay dirt with the remarkably original work, L’Age D’Or. It was considered scandalous for its anti-Catholic orientation. Buñuel fled Spain for America during the Spanish Civil War. In the United States, Buñuel’s career was largely side-tracked. He took work on military documentaries and Spanish-language versions of Hollywood films. His career entered a bright new stage in the 1950’s when he moved to Mexico. There he produced several fine films, including Los Olvidados (1950), El (1952) and The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955). Buñuel moved to France in 1955 and quickly produced three noteworthy films: Death in the Garden (1955), Nazarin (1958), and The Young One (1960). These films solidified Buñuel’s international reputation and earned him an invitation to return and work in his native Spain. Back in Spain, Buñuel produced the marvelous Viridiana (1961) which won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, but it was immediately banned in Spain for its unflattering portrayal of Catholicism. That success was followed by another popular Buñuel film, The Exterminating Angel.
In the decade from 1967 to 1977, Buñuel produced a remarkable series of films that remain among his most popular today, including Belle de Jour (1967), Tristana (1970), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). All of these are in French except for Tristana, which was filmed in Spanish. Tristana encompasses Buñuel’s usual themes – critique of religion, bourgeois hypocrisies, and the ineffectiveness of Spanish liberalism (for failing to prevent Fascism). These themes, however, lie just below the surface of the story of Tristana, which is mainly a psychodrama, adapted from a novel by Benito Perez Galdos.
The Story: The setting is Toledo, Spain where Buñuel himself lived as a young man from 1920 to 1936. It concerns a young woman, Tristana (Catherine Deneuve), in her early twenties, who, upon the death of her mother, is made a ward of a elderly aristocrat, Don Lope (Fernando Rey). Don Lope is politically liberal on the surface, but both hypocritical in his politics and blatantly sexist in his personal life. He claims, for example, to support Marxist principles and the elevation of the working class but abhors work and believes it beneath his social standing to do anything other than what pleases him. He states to friends that he believes in the biblical commandments except for those pertaining to sex and women. Don Lope is an aging lecher – a decent enough man in most respects but blatant in his efforts at seduction of young women. He encourages his new ward, Tristana, to develop a sense of freedom, by which he means mainly freedom to be his lover. At the same time, he is jealously possessive of her and discourages her from going out alone. He tells his friends, “If you want an honest woman, break her leg and keep her home.” To Tristana, he says, “I’m your father and your husband – I can be one or the other as and when it suits me.” She becomes his mistress – not unwillingly but without enthusiasm. Soon, she grows to detest him and even has nightmares in which his head appears as the bell clapper of the bell in the church tower.
Tristana chaffs at the demeaning control exerted by Don Lope and soon finds the courage to step out in a bit of rebellion. She meets a handsome young artist, Horacio (Franco Nero) and begins to meet him with regularity behind Don Lope’s back. Tristana and Horacio decide to go away together and Don Lope tries to confront Horacio and challenge him to a duel, but Horacio simply knocks him down. The young lovers are soon on their way.
Two years pass by without any contact between Tristana and Don Lope. Don Lope in the interim has inherited wealth from the death of a sister. Horacio and Tristana return, seeking his help. Tristana has developed a tumor in her leg and is in dire health and severe pain. Don Lope decides to help her, out of some combination of genuine concern and the opportunity to once again have Tristana under his control. Horacio, on the other hand, takes the opportunity to back away and go about his own life. The physician determines that Tristana’s leg must be amputated (an interesting circumstance considering Don Lope’s earlier statement about how to keep a woman honest). After Tristana’s leg is amputated, she is fitted with a prosthetic, which she sometimes uses and other times not.
Through this ordeal as well as her earlier exploitation by Don Lope, Tristana has become deeply embittered. In her dependent state, she agrees to a loveless marriage with Don Lope, mainly for the purpose of tormenting him out of revenge. She refuses to sleep with him even on their wedding night, mocking him for having such pretensions for such an old man. The extent of Tristana’s deterioration into viciousness is further revealed in a scene where she flashes her breasts from a veranda to the deaf-mute Saturno (the son of Don Lope’s maid), who is standing in the yard below. She has, in effect, seduced the naïve young man as she was once seduced by the more experienced Don Lope.
Don Lope’s health begins to deteriorate and one night he calls for aid from his bedroom, apparently in the midst of a heart attack. He instructs Tristana to call the doctor but she merely fakes placing the call from the next room. When she returns to the bedroom, he is already dead but she opens the windows to let in the winter cold to make sure. While it is doubtful that Tristana’s acts in this instance actually caused Don Lope’s death, it is clear that she was prepared to do so had it been necessary.
Themes:Tristana explores complex psychological themes, albeit not always in a manner that I find especially credible. This is a film, first and foremost, about conflicts. The most obvious conflict is the age-old battle of the sexes. Don Lope wants a beautiful young woman on his arm as a trophy. Tristana is naïve and easily manipulated even though not a child. I was surprised to read a review from a national source that stated that one of the issues explored by this film is “rape.” Don Lope never forces himself on Tristana nor does he use intimidating threats or inducements. Tristana gives herself to him willingly. Nor is she underage. Naïve, but not underage. Don Lope engaged in seduction perhaps, but not rape.
A second theme raised by this film are issues of power differential. At one point Don Lope helps a thief get away by misdirecting the pursuing police. He explains to a bewildered Tristana that he always helps the weak against the strong. In the sexual arena, however, where his experience gave him strength and Tristana’s inexperience made her vulnerable, he felt entirely free to exploit that differential for the satisfaction of his libido and ego.
As the film progresses, the power differential ultimately shifts to the advantage of Tristana. Don Lope has in effect been de-clawed by age while Tristana, sadly, has become as vicious as Don Lope once was. In this one respect, Tristana as a film, reminds me a bit of Swept Away, where an upper class woman abuses the working class hired boat hand (classism) until they end up on a deserted island where he abuses her because she’s a woman (sexism). In Tristana, the shift is from sexism on Don Lope’s part to ageism on Tristana’s part. I find it troublesome that most reviewers seem to view Tristana’s treatment of Don Lope in the last part of the film as poetic justice or as Don Lope getting his due. Tristana’s treatment of Don Lope at the end of the film is at least as despicable as his treatment of her at the beginning. She was, in fact, prepared to murder him, although circumstances spared her the trouble. His offense was seduction of a naïve young woman, which is hardly a capital offense. Moreover, few reviewers comment on Tristana’s seductive interaction with the naïve deaf-mute man, which stunned him to an extent that caused him to retreat in panic into the bushes. There is a kind of sexism operating when the seduction of Tristana by Don Lope is judged as so much more culpable than Tristana’s seduction of Saturno. I think it reflects that fact that most national film reviewers are male and the idea of a woman as lovely as Catherine Deneuve flashing her breasts is thought of more with a vision of delight than for the traumatizing potential it might have on a somewhat mentally incompetent person.
I found the extent of the metamorphosis of Tristana from innocent young woman to cold hearted potential murderer and abuser of the handicapped as less than fully credible. Had she been forcibly raped by Don Lope or subjected to extraordinary intimidation or pressure, I could imagine the change. As it was, she willingly became his lover and could have stopped at any time that she felt that she was being used. I don’t view this film as an instance of a “heroine” triumphing over a tormentor. She became an embittered tormentor herself, without any degree of traumatic experience that would justify such a conversion.
Apparently, there are deeper levels of meaning in this film that have lost a lot of their punch over the years. Too many of the obscure references are either overly dated or excessively specific to Buñuel’s own life and can be appreciated only by viewers having intimate knowledge of the political and cultural climate of Spain at that particular point in time or close familiarity with the biography of Buñuel (during his days in Toledo and his adolescents rebellions against religion and his bourgeois upbringing). I would think that these kinds of overly specific themes will limit both the international interest and durability of interest for this film as time goes on.
Production Values: The cinematography was provided by José F. Aguayo. He provided a rich color palette and mostly still camera technique. The framing and shot composition was superb.
One great strength of this film is the intense performance by Catherine Deneuve, the great French actress who also starred in such films as Umbrellas of Cherbourg(1964), Belle de Jour (1967), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), and Indochine (1992).
The actor playing Don Lope, Fernando Rey, also appeared in such Buñuel films as Viridiana and That Obscure Object of Desire. I’ve seen each of those films and Rey seems too much the same tired old lecher in all these films. I hope that his performance range was broader in some of his other work. He was effective enough, but I’d like to see him playing another kind of character all together for a change.
Bottom-Line:Tristana is an interesting psychological study. Note that I said “interesting” and not “entertaining.” I found the middle third or so of the film slow and rather boring. The last third had my full attention, however, and I found myself mulling over the psychological aspects of the film as I was doing the dinner dishes. Although I generally like films that provide cerebral nourishment, I’d rather take that nourishment with a little more lively entertainment than this film provided. I recommend this film mainly for those with a particular interest in psychological issues. For those expecting a significant portion of entertainment value, I’d suggest looking elsewhere. This is an accomplished work, but the overly-specific political themes and relentless harping on Buñuel obsessions are likely to have little potency for the average modern American or non-Spanish European viewer.
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