Tristana
Tags: psychedelic, romantic

Plot synopsis:
The story is set in the late 1920s to early 1930s. Tristana is an orphan adopted by nobleman don Lope Garrido. Don Lope falls in love with her and thus treats her as wife as well as daughter 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 Lope. The illness results in her losing a leg, which changes her prospects; here, the film substantially varies from the novel.
Don Lope inherits money from his sister, Tristana eventually marries him, and, when don Lope is ill, Tristana finishes him off by feigning calling the doctor and opening the window to the winter cold.
=== Differences from the novel ===
In the novel, Tristana resignedly marries don Lope in order for him to receive his inheritance. Also different from the novel is Saturno's increased role -- barely mentioned in the novel, he is Tristana's third love interest in the film.

Review: It is especially well-crafted with its sinewed study of human relationships, and humans that desperately try to relate with each other.Tristana, played brilliantly by Catherine Denueve, is the central character whom we see evolve from an innocent young girl with her many ideals about love and relationship, to a bitter and cynical woman at the film's end who cannot believe in anything any longer.
It is with special finesse that Deneuve plays her, that we witness, with heartbreak, every turn of her back on the things she love, and every rejection of all morality that she held before.Fernando Rey's character is probably the murkiest but ultimately most empathetic character, as at the end of the film, age wears off his hard-edged cynicism and turns him into the loving father figure that Tristana desperately needed in the beginning of the film.
The way Rey's character treasures the time with the vile and vindictive Tristana at the end of the film is not only overwhelmingly sad, but also an epiphany by an auteur who is gaining age himself.In spite of all its dramatic turns of events, Tristana is not an emotional and angsty film in its portrayal of its characters' lives.
It might appear to the uninitiated that Luis Bunuel is making with Tristana at first a good but very predictable melodrama that turns somewhere in the second half mark into a strange power-play of desire turned on its head.
But in reality, when looking at it after seeing a couple of his films, Bunuel's work with Tristana is somehow kind of touching.
Usually one might expect some dark or subtle comedy of manners or satire on society, but here it's stripped away, as it was for some of Viridiana, and all that's left is a spare, tense and expertly manipulated tale where the tables are turned once or twice on the couple of Don Lope (Fernando Rey) and Tristana (Catherine Deneauve, maybe her most physically demanding of her two Bunuel roles).One thing that's extraordinary about how Bunuel directs and allows for his actors to play the scenes is that the emotions are only heightened to a certain level, and never with the aid of things like music or tears.
It is what it is: Don Lope has taken care of Tristana as her guardian since her mother died, and now has inserted himself as her father/husband figure, with his servant Saturna (stern-faced but understanding Lola Gaos) a kind of unofficial confessional.
This goes without saying that one should take it for granted that Tristana isn't *that* young and could take care of herself without Lope, but maybe this is part of the point of the slight absurdity- and eventual tragedy- of this struggle.Two years go by after she leaves Lope for Horacio, with a tumor in her leg.
She's now a cripple, and now once again a kind of mental prisoner in Lope's home; the complexity of old man Lope as being duplicitous is seen right after he finds out she's sick and Horacio asks for Lope to help keep her home, and he nearly skips home saying "she'll never leave again!" All of this, leading up to a final twist that is very satisfying if extending the tragic dimension of Lope and Tristana, would be soapy and tawdry and, possibly, very standard in other hands.
For Bunuel, there's a lot of personal ground here; I wonder at times if Rey is a little like one of those actors a director of Bunuel's auteur-stature uses as a means of expressing himself through an actor, or if it's just because he's so good at playing wicked AND sympathetic bourgeois.
And the mixture of ideas, if not really themes, covering what's love and over-control, religion, deformity, a free will are potent and exciting even in such subtle and (as Maltin said) serenely filmed territory.It's also a minor triumph for Deneuve, who between this and Belle de jour did some of her best work as an actress for the notorious surrealist.
Dramatic film about a strange relationship , being splendidly directed by the Spanish maestro of surrealism , the great Luis Buñuel.
When the young woman Tristana (Catherine Deneuve)'s mother dies, she is entrusted to the guardianship of the well-respected though old Don Lope (Fernando Rey) being served by the old maid (Lola Gaos) .
Then Tristana meets the painter Horacio (Franco Nero) , they fall in love with each other and Tristana flees from Don Lope who faces competition from her suitor .This is the sensuous story of Tristana , a drama with surrealism and sour portrait upon social classes , catholicism , sexual abuses and many other things , being stunningly realized by the Spanish maestro of surrealism , the great Luis Buñuel .
Nice acting by Fernando Rey as an old man who falls for the innocent girl in his charge , to the point of result to be perhaps the best performance of his long career .
Rey played various Buñuel films such as The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie , That Obscure object of Desire and Viridiana .
And Catherine Deneuve's finest most enigmatic acting as a young cynical woman who goes to live with her guardian and subsequently turned into a bitter incapacitated cripple .
Tristana was voted tenth best Spanish film by professionals and critics in 1996 Spanish cinema centenary and nominated for an Oscar ,film Foreign Language.Thid wry and dramatic motion picture was compellingly directed by Luis Buñuel who was voted the 14th Greatest Director of all time .
In the 30's, in Spain, the teenager Tristana (Catherine Deneuve) becomes an orphan when her mother, who is the servant of Don Lope (Fernando Rey), dies.
She accepts but now Tristana is a bitter and cynical woman and Don Lope feels the consequence of his acts in the past."Tristana" is a morbid tale of lost of innocence by Luis Buñuel.
I had seen this film for the last time on 05 Feb 2003 and despite the wonderful performances of Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey, it is not among my favorite Buñuel's films.
One of the latest works from the genius of Calanda, he was still stigmatized by Franco's dictatorship and he adapted a text by Benito Pérez Galdós about a young pretty girl (Catherine Deneuve) whose mother dies and has to go to live (and something else) with his stepfather (Fernando Rey)."Tristana" contains many of the common factors of Buñuel's movies: his total contempt for the ruling sectors of society and the rich people, for hypocrisy and Puritanism; his irreverence, and a wicked and implicit sexual content.
Fernando Rey plays a typical Spanish "hidalgo" that's come down in the world and that sexually harass his stepdaughter.So, Buñuel not only hadn't lost his touch with the years, on the contrary, he felt more and more free as the time went by to let his genius flow *My rate: 8/10.
I must have watched a different movie than the reviewers who call this "the top movie of all time" a 10 plus and so forth.First of all dubbing robs 90% of an actor's abilities and the two main characters are dubbed De Neuve and Fernando Rey..it sounds like a spaghetti western.
Also although very minor there were slip ups in the time editing...a modern car can be seen in the back ground of one of the scenes and the train lines were electrified.I am sure the movie can be micro-analyzed for symbolism and visual cues..on the door of the apartment they live in is the faint white scrawl of a man's face and so forth (death?).I am sure it is flawless in this way...but as far a convincing as to why DeNeuve turns jaded it just doesn't work well---the dubbing and the abruptness mainly...I did find the main character's hypocrisy good a socialist ordering glazed maroons and living the high life....although in a leftie directors eyes this may not have been intended to be hypocrisy but rather showing his sophistication.
Maybe such scenes might be appealing or even touching for lots of people but for me personally they're funny.Many other notes may be added briefly, like long intro without applying the needed depth of characters (the film not the novel) for us audience to get in the mood of the film and create the required solid background about their psychological, mental and social status.But we cannot though overlook the good performance of most actors and the humanistic spirit of the film with all its relevant sub themes like hypocrisy (maybe self deception), love's nature and relativity of honor.
For viewers 'Tristana' might be an important film but it lacks criticism and sharpness for which Luis Buñuel was famous..
It is true that Spanish film 'Tristana' is considered an important work in the cinematographic career of Luis Buñuel.
Aguayo (Viridiana) did a fine job (in color) that looks like a step in the direction of the cinematography of Buñuel's last three films.
impressive performances of Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey. the transformation of Tristana .
When the young woman Tristana's mother dies, she is entrusted to the guardianship of the well-respected though old Don Lope.
But Don Lope's one weakness is women, and he falls for the innocent girl in his charge, seduces her, makes her his lover, though all the while explaining to her that she is as free as he.Buñuel's French investors insisted that Catherine Deneuve be cast as Tristana and his Italian investors wanted young heartthrob Franco Nero to play Horacio.
The orphan becomes both the 'daughter' and lover of Don Lope, Rey's character, and it is the change in power from Don Lope to Tristana that is one of the central themes of the film.
The acting is brilliant, no more so than the leads of Deneuve and Rey. Tristana could be seen as the sister of Severine in Belle De Jour, also played by Deneuve.Certainly worthy of being in the top ten films of all time.
It was the second time Bunuel had directed Deneuve and she was probably never better than when she was directed by the master.Like Juan Bardem's unfairly forgotten "calle mayor" ,"Tristana depicts a small Spanish town still entangled in religion.But the times are changing.Don Lope (Rey) has become an hedonist and he tells us that it's Mosis who made sex a sin.Tristana is his ward,but as she confesses it to the painter,"I'm his daughter and his wife" .Tristana is perhaps Bunuel's most complex woman.The physical metamorphosis of Deneuve is stunning.From the virgin who puts her hair in braids to the bitchy one-legged woman ,she runs the whole gamut.She refuses marriage because it kills love,and when she finally becomes Lope's wife,she uses it as a way of humiliating and frustrating her old husband whom she despises .The noise in the corridor as Tristana walks on her crutches while Lope is sipping hot chocolate with his friends (priests) shows frustration as nobody but Bunuel can.The dream,(Rey as a bell clapper),which will remain "Tristana"'s most famous scene, will puzzle the audience.The first time it had appeared ,I did not think at all it was a dream.Bunuel will take this technique to its absolute limits in "discreet charm of the bourgeoisie",his following work .We find back some of Bunuel's permanent features in "Tristana" :Lope,full of jealousy and locking up his ward, is a distant cousin of the hero of "El" ;the deaf and dumb boy ,some kind of brother of Maria in "la mort en ce jardin";The old man who sees his youth slip away was already in "Viridiana" (Fernando Rey again);fetishism ;exhibitionism :in a memorable scene,Tristana ,who refuses to give herself to her future husband (the wedding scene follows the exhibitionist one)shows her magnificent body to the deaf and dumb boy,an outcast,the scum of the earth ,derisively.Recommended,as anything Bunuel did..
Tristana is a Buñuel's film based on Benito Perez Galdos' realist novel of the same title, what Spaniards call a "novela costumbrista", that is, an epoch novel that focus on real local customs, social types and atmosphere.It tells the story of Tristana, a 19y.o. orphan girl, who moves to the house of her legal guardian, Don Lope, a socialist bourgeois womanizer, who becomes not only her father, but also her lover-husband.The way Buñuel shot the movie is not especially daring or original within Spanish cinema, and, despite what some people say, there is not surrealism in this movie, just some oniric images - two very different things that people mix too often.
What makes the movie so interesting is not the realist way in which depicts 19th Spanish society (there are many movies of this sort in Spanish cinema), but how Buñuel approaches and modifies the story to bring out Tristana's dark side.
The viewer starts despising and hating that indecent abuser of Don Lope, for his social hypocrisy and his sexual behavior, forgetting that young Tristana, despite despising him, does not oppose or resist his sexual advances, and lives like a princess from his money being as hypocrite as her master.
The viewer ends thinking that nothing is what it looked like, and that both Don Lope and Tristana are connected to the core, identical in a way, evil both of them.As always, Buñuel is a master at directing actors and creating an homogeneous ensemble of a group of big movie stars.
The rest of the cast, which includes Franco Nero, Antonio Casas, and Jesus Fernandez, among many other supporting actors, are also good in their respective roles.Not the best or most experimental Buñuel's movie, but very intriguing, with terrific performances, that offers an accurate portrait of Spain in the 19th century and explores controversial philosophical themes..
Sometimes hilarious, often dream like surreal drama tells about a young woman, heavenly beautiful and innocent in the beginning, bitter and pitiless but still heavenly beautiful sans one leg in the end.
Catherine Deneuve gave perhaps her best performance as an orphaned 19 years old girl who after her mother's death has been adapted by the aristocratic free-thinking atheist, Don Lope Garrido in absolutely fantastic performance by Bunuel's favorite leading man in the latter half of the director's career, Fernando Rey (That Obscure Object of Desire, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Tristana, Viridiana).
However, over time, she becomes more bitter and cold--and this transition becomes so apparent and ironic at the film's conclusion.Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey are both superb in the movie, as is the pacing, direction and cinematography.
Catherine Deneuve is the title character, left in the care of older Fernando Rey, an aristocrat fallen on hard times.
When Deneuve leaves him for young artist Franco Nero, Rey, true to character, berates her and challenges Nero to a duel!
Deneuve solidifies her her status as not only one of the screen's great beauties, but a fine actress willing to use her looks to play not only flighty or distressed waifs, but really cruel characters as well (as Tristana becomes after fate hands her a horrifying blow)..
From director Luis Buñuel (Un Chien Andalou, Land Without Bread, Belle De Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), this Spanish film was another listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so it didn't matter that I knew nothing about it, I was going to watch it.
Basically set in 1930's Spain, teenager Tristana (Catherine Deneuve) is orphaned after the death of her servant mother, she is adopted by her mother's master, elderly respected aristocrat Don Lope (Fernando Rey), despite having socialistic views about business and religion he is well known and liked by many.
But the biggest weakness Don Lope has is for women, and despite being her trusted guardian he cannot help but fall in love with Tristana, to the point that he seduces her, and she becomes his lover, although it is much more sexual abuse of the innocent young woman, she is not completely aware of the implications as he often tells her she is free to do what she wants.
A year or two later Tristana finds her own voice, demanding to study music, art and other subjects and wanting to become independent, and she one day meets young artist Horacio Díaz (Franco Nero), and she flees Toledo and her guardian with him as they have fallen in love.
Deneuve gives a terrific chilling performance as the young woman who grows up with perhaps an alternative view on life and the ways of the world, and Rey is also terrific as the man who has done it to her and who you can have no pity for, it is an interesting story with a twisted relationship and the need to escape or get revenge for ruining a life, I admit it wasn't all that easy to follow on occasions, but all in all it is worthwhile period drama.
While the plot feels right up his alley (respected aging aristocrat seduces his ward, leading to conflict when she falls in love with a younger man) there were times were I was wondering if I was really watching a Buñuel film.
Fernando Rey and Catherine Deneuve are both exceptional as the aging Don Lope and his ward Tristana, respectively.
Finally, Lola Gaos heads the supporting cast and does a terrific job as Don Lope's housemaid Saturna.Because this is such an actor's film, Buñuel's direction is a bit flat for the most part.
Aside from the use of snow towards the end, the film isn't much to look at and the cinematography is a little flat at times.
The effects used to convey one character having their leg amputated are well done however, and the costumes and sets feel very authentic and one never gets the sense that the sense that this historical drama feels staged.In conclusion, the film is definitely worth seeing for Rey and Deneuve's performances but this isn't the first Buñuel I'd show someone who's never seen a film of his as while it is more accessible, it lacks his usual distinctive style and in general isn't one of his stronger works..
The innocent Deneuve is entrusted to her guardian, Fernando Rey, an honorable man whose weakness is women.