Tristana (1970) - film review

Spain, in the 1920s.  After the death of her mother, a beautiful young woman, Tristana, becomes the ward of a respectable but impecunious aristocrat, Don Lope.  The latter refuses to work for a living, deeming this to be beneath his dignity, and spends most of his time voicing his socialist and anti-religious opinions, often with a large dose of hypocrisy.  He secretly takes advantage of his ward whilst publicly making great virtue of his self-restraint.  A rift quickly develops between Tristana and Don Lope when the young woman meets and falls in love with an artist, Horacio.  Tristana is driven by Lope’s jealousy to elope with the artist, but returns a few years later, grievously ill, begging to stay in Lope’s house...

Although it runs along very similar lines to Buñuel’s earlier masterpieces, Viridiana (1961) and Belle de jour (1967), Tristana is far less striking in its anti-establishment rhetoric and use of surrealist imagery.  Although the film is often overlooked, it is certainly an impressive work of cinema, addressing the familiar Buñuelesque themes of a moral decline and middle-class hypocrisy in an uncharacteristically restrained Buñuelesque way.

Unusually for Buñuel, the film uses pretty conventional cinematography and a linear narrative form (apart from the typical Buñuel device of the dream sequence, used sparingly in this film).  As a result, much greater focus is placed on the leading characters, stunningly portrayed by Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey.  Having actors of this calibre enables Buñuel to direct his wider political concerns into a comparatively narrow sphere, the incestuous relationship between a ward and her guardian.  The uneasy rapport between Deneuve and Rey seems to hint at so much conflict beneath the surface, a torrent of emotions which is subtly alluded to but never explicitly shown to us.

Most of Buñuel’s later films close with a surprising and totally baffling ending, and Tristana is no exception.  Given that Buñuel managed to restrain himself for most of the film, it would be churlish to deny the great director this one brilliant flourish of surrealist ambiguity.  What it all means though is anyone’s guess.

© James Travers 2000

See also:
The life of Luis Buñuel
Un chien Andalou
L’Age d’or
Viridiana
El Angel exterminador
Belle du jour
Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie
French fantasy films




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