OVP: Tristana (1970)

Film: Tristana (1970)
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Fernando Rey, Frano Nero, Lola Gaos
Director: Luis Bunuel
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Spain)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I am having a lot of health issues this week (not-Covid, for the record), and so other than work I have basically been a vegetable trying to calm said issues, which is why I haven't posted much.  My hope, though, is that by Sunday we'll still get out our four Foreign Film articles (and Saturdays with the Stars is all set to go already), and then next week (stomach-willing), I'll be back to our normal schedule.  Today our article is going to be about Tristana, one of the final films from cinematic icon Luis Bunuel, and a movie made at arguably the peak of Catherine Deneuve's initial stardom.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film feels at once conventional and very film-of-the-1970's.  We have Tristana (Deneuve), a beautiful young woman whose mother has just died.  She is taken on as a ward by Don Lope (Rey), who initially treats her as a father, but then adopts her as his lover, basically rationalizing to her and himself that if it weren't for him, she'd be on the streets, and therefore she owes him.  It's as gross as it sounds, but thankfully the filmmakers realize that it's gross.  Tristana eventually falls in love with Horacio (Nero), a handsome young painter, and is taken in as his lover, but when she gets sick and loses her leg to a tumor she agrees to wed Don Lope (who is now rich after inheriting a large sum from his sister), and in the final moments of the film, she kills him, essentially pretending to call for a doctor when he is obviously in need of medical care, and (presumably) inheriting his fortune.

The film is oddly juxtaposed between the beauty of a young Deneuve (radiant, always, but breathtakingly so so early in her career) with the grossness of the story.  The film's plot, with Don Lope essentially blackmailing Tristana into being his lover, is the kind you'd see in an old movie, but instead of having her eventually love him (which would have happened in an old movie, or, quite frankly Beauty and the Beast), she gets her revenge, and it's pretty cathartic for the audience.  The film has other visually gross elements (there's a scene where Rey's head, in a dream, is banging against a bell), but it doesn't need them-the heinousness of what is happening is already apparent.

Deneuve has a difficult role to play here.  While Rey and Nero have relatively standard characterizations (played well, but still), there's little growth in these characters, likely to show how much Tristana changes (or doesn't...both interpretations have merit) as we go.  There are scenes that don't make sense (like when she flashes a third side of the love square, a young man named Saturna, on a balcony) until the film's final moments, when you understand that Tristana, despite being robbed of her lover and her leg, is still in command, still aware of the effect she can have on men, not just sexually, but in taking what she wants from them, in this case revenge and inheritance.  There's the potential for this character to be an anti-feminist nightmare, but Deneuve doesn't play her that way-she's someone who understands power, and is willing to use her own to gain an advantage on those who betray her.  It's a fascinating, unkempt revenge tale.