Review of Tristana (1970) by Teri T — 30 May 2012

I don't think Luis Bunuel ever made a film as beautifully centered between comedy and tragedy as this, the second and final film the director made with the great Catherine Deneuve. It is a real shame that the two didn't get more opportunities to work together, as she seems the perfect object for his obsessions, and he the perfect creative force to turn her seemingly harmless beauty into something violent and powerful.

Perhaps, though, the grip they had on each other was too much for either of them to take for too long; one gets the impression from watching 'Tristana' that the two had already figured each other out, that there were no more dark corners to find in either artist's psyche.

'Belle de Jour' (the first film the two made together) is often looked at as one of his best films, and it is, but this film is every bit as biting and entertaining. It concerns the young Tristana (Deneuve), who has just lost her mother, and the old nobleman Don Lope (the extraordinary Fernando Rey), who takes the girl first under his wing as a father and then under his lusty, jealous grip as a husband.

During the first half of the film, Tristana remains quite passive. Bunuel uses and abuses Deneuve's pouty innocence to paint a portrait of a woman who remains totally submissive. But, as is often the case with Bunuelian women, she soon begins to explore her own power and ultimately reverts Don Lope's dominance.

The story is in the same vein as Bunuel's stunning swan song 'That Obscure Object of Desire', but it takes itself more seriously as a piece of drama. It has a melancholy tone to it and often resists satire in situations the director usually assaulted.

The disquieting finale suggests some weight to the characters' stories, which is quite the opposite of most of Bunuel's ouvre. It is a wondrous film filled with moments of black humor and moments of plain blackness, and it is one of the director's very best.