a revenge comedy
by Douglas Messerli
Julio
Alejandro and Luis Buñuel (screenplay, based on the novel by Benito Pérez
Galdós), Luis Buñuel (director) Tristana /
1970
It
continues to annoy me that many critics perceive the great filmmaker Luis Buñuel as a
basically immoral rebel fascinated by sadomasochism. In reviewing his 1970
film, Tristana, the usually
level-headed Roger Ebert even goes so far as to write:
The subject matter came out of his
own lifelong ob-
sessions. His favorite
subjects were sado-
masochism and anticlericalism
ever since his first
movie with Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou (1928),
and in the late flowering of
his work in his 70s he
became undoubtedly the
dirtiest old man of genius
the cinema has ever produced.
While it is clear that the director was
virulently anticlerical, given the
tradition of the Spanish church leaders and involvement with the military right
and continuation of the most patriarchal of cultural values, his position
should be seen as a thoroughly moral one. And, yes, a great many of his films
seem fixated on sado-masochistic situations, particularly Virdiana and Belle de Jour,
the latter of which also stars the heroine of Tristiana (the beautiful
Catherine Deneuve), but it is not Buñuel, I would argue, who is
trapped in these often morally reprehensible situations as are the characters
of his works, all products of the corrupt societies he clearly exposes in his
films, particularly in works such as Exterminating
Angel and The Discreet Charm of the
Bourgeoisie.
Don Lope Garrido (Fernando Rey), the
reprehensible figure at the center of Tristana
is ostensibly a model figure of the 1920s in Toledo. A liberal man of a
wealthy childhood, Don Lope is a polished aristocrat without aristocratic
affectations, himself refusing to work because of the evils of industrialism.
His intellectual support is for the down-trodden and working class, and he
later hires the street urchin, the deaf, trouble-maker Saturno (Jesús Fernández), whose mother, Saturna (Lola
Gaos), works as his cook. His public problem is that is slowly running out of
money, and must sell some of his cherished possessions to support himself and
his staff.
Don Lope’s secret problem is his attitude
toward women. A staunch supporter of open sexuality—he has sex only if we can
get the woman to agree—the hedonist dandy believes in open relationships,
refusing to be tied down by marriage.
As
it is, she increasingly seeks a way out of what he defines an “open”
relationship. Ignoring his desires, she daily takes long walks through the
streets, meeting a handsome young artist, Horacio (Franco Nero), with whom she
quickly falls in love. After several trysts, she determines to leave Don Lope
and run away with Horacio. Despite Don Lope’s discovery of their relationship,
and his attempt to challenge Horacio to a duel, the two do escape the city and
have an apparently happy relationship for at least two years, without marrying,
since, like Don Lope, she now believes that love is more important than the patriarchal
institution that binds women to their spouses.
When Tristana develops a leg tumor, she
inexplicably insists that he take her back to Don Lope, who has now come into a
large inheritance through death of his hated sister. We later discover that
Tristana’s insistence, however, may have been a test of Horacio’s love and his
ability to care for her. As it is, she moves back into Don Lope’s house, as the
two men arrange meetings between Horacio and Tristana, while the old man
ludicrously hopes to bring her back into his bed, particularly since Tristana
has now had her leg amputated, trapping her, at least symbolically, within the
relationship. Unable to deal with her amputation and with the increasingly
angry woman, Horacio soon leaves the city.
By this time Tristana, bitter about the
way she has been treated by both men, has come to rule the house, particularly
since the aging Don Lope no longer has the strength to oppose her. Don Lope
even begins to attend mass with her, finally going so far as to marry her. Soon
after he, the long-time hater of the Catholic clegy, invites the priests to his
house for cocoa and sugar, while they attempt to coax him into leaving money
for the church.
At moments, the now chaste Tristana, toys
with her servant, opening her breasts to him as he works beneath her balcony,
forcing him to back off into the woods to masturbate, something he has
comically accomplished in long-closed bathroom scenes throughout the film.
When one night, Don Lope cries out while
suffering a heart attack, Tristana comes rushing to his side, pretending to
call the doctor and, when she determines he is near death, opening his bedroom
window to the cold night air, closing it again shortly before the doctor
arrives to announce his death.
Los Angeles, November 1, 2015
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