Themes: Innocence Lost, Class Differences, Age Disparity Romance
Main Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Fernando Rey, Franco Nero, Lola Gaos, Jesus Fernandez
Release Year: 1970
Country: ES/IT/FR
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Luis Buñuel's Tristana is a surreal criticism of Catholicism and the modern world, told through the story of the title character, who is portrayed by Catherine Deneuve. Tristana is a young Spanish woman left to the care of Don Lope (Fernando Rey), the protective but impoverished aristocrat. Don sells his possessions to avoid manual labor and champions the causes of the dispossessed and downtrodden of society. He takes advantage of the vulnerable Tristana, who leaves him when she falls in love with Horacio (Franco Nero). Unable to commit to him, she returns to Don Lope when she falls ill. He asks for her hand in marriage, and she accepts after losing her leg to cancer. She chooses to remain in a passionless union rather than be subject to the harsh realities of a society that refuses to change to the needs of women. Taken from the novel by celebrated author Benito Perez Galdos, the film -- wherein director Buñuel takes his usual jabs at religion and politics -- is a tribute to the author on the 50th anniversary of his death. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
Review
This is a typically brilliant film by Luis Buñuel, with the old master at the top of his late form as a European master. The outlines of Buñuel's career are well known, from the surrealist provocateur (with Salvador Dali) of Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L' Âge d'Or (1930), the brutal documentarian of Las Hurdes (1933), and then a long break from the director's chair while Buñuel busied himself with supervising the Spanish version of mediocre Hollywood films, working at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and then finally packing up and moving to Mexico to restart his career. There, he moved into one of the worst areas of Mexico City, and after two conventional but lightweight entertainments, created Los Olvidados (1950), perhaps the ultimate condemnation of life in the slums, and won Best Director at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival for his efforts, along with numerous other honors. Thereafter, Buñuel was unstoppable, and progressed through a series of violent and hallucinatory films in Mexico in the 1950s and '60s, moving his production base to Spain and then France in the 1970s. Tristana belongs to this last period in Buñuel's career, along with La Voie Lactée (1969) and Belle de Jour (1967). Buñuel regular Fernando Rey (most famous for his role as Alain Charnier, the unscrupulous heroin dealer in William Friedkin's The French Connection [1971]) stars as Don Lope, an aging figure of respectability who becomes the guardian of Tristana (Catherine Deneuve), a young woman with whom he is soon completely smitten. The film is essentially a contest of wills between the two, with Don Lope initially in control, and rapidly losing ground as his sexual obsession overcomes his bourgeois sensibility. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture in 1971, and Buñuel would direct only three more films before his death: Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie (1972), Le Fantôme de la Liberté (1974), and Cet Obscur Objet du Désir (1977). In his old age, Buñuel mellowed, but never lost his bite; these final films are the works of a master at the peak of his powers, still defiantly making films to please only one person: himself. ~ Wheeler Winston Dixon, All Movie Guide
Antonio Casas - Don Cosme; Mary Paz Pondal - Girl; Fernando Cebrian - Dr. Miquis; Luis Aller; Jose Maria Caffarel; José Calvo - Bellringer; Antonio Ferrandis; Candida Losada - Senora Burguesa; Sergio Mendizabal - Professor; Juan Jose Menendez - Don Candido; Vicente Roca; Vincent Solder; Saturno Cerra; Adriano Dominguez; Jose Riesgo
Credit
Enrique Alarcon - Art Director, Rosa Garcia - Costume Designer, Pierre Lary - First Assistant Director, Luis Buñuel - Director, Pedro del Rey - Editor, Juan Estelrich - Executive Producer, Julian Ruiz - Makeup, Jose Fernandez Aguayo - Cinematographer, Juan Estelrich - Production Manager, Luis Buñuel - Producer, Luis Arguello - Set Designer, Antonio Molina - Special Effects, Luis Buñuel - Screenwriter, Julio Alejandro - Screenwriter, Benito Pérez Galdós - Book Author
Tristana is an orphan adopted by nobleman Don Lope Garrido. Don Lope falls in love with her and thus treats her as daughter and wife from the age of 19. But, by age 21 Tristana starts finding her voice, to demand to study music, art and other subjects with which she wishes to become independent. She meets the young artist Horacio Díaz, falls in love, and eventually leaves Toledo to live with him. When she falls ill, she returns to Don Lópe. The illness results in her losing a leg, which changes her prospects; here, the film substantially varies from the novel.
Lópe inherits money from his sister, Tristana eventually marries him, and, when Lópe is ill, Tristana finishes him off by feigning calling the doctor and opening the window to the winter cold. By then she has become jaded like Lope. In the novel she resignedly marries him in order for Lope to receive his inheritance. Also different from the novel is Saturno's increased role (barely mentioned in the novel), but in the film is Tristana's third love interest.
