Tristana (1970)

Tristana: Directed by Luis Buñuel. With Catherine Deneuve, Fernando Rey, Franco Nero, Lola Gaos. Shortly after her mother’s death, an innocent and youthful woman will find refuge into the household of her middle-aged aristocratic guardian, who will submit her to his sexual advances.

“I canu0026#39;t say I know Luis Bunuelu0026#39;s style well, since Iu0026#39;ve not seen many of his works, and those that Iu0026#39;ve seen usually just struck me as blah. But then yesterday I saw Tristana which starred Catherine Deneuve and was awe-struck by it. See, the comments that Iu0026#39;ve read online about it have seem to have the focus all wrong, they are more interested in commenting on Bunuelu0026#39;s usual attack on the bourgeois and catholicism. Yes it is dark and in some places rather surreal, but above all, Tristana is a simple and sad story about its characters as they grapple with life, love, loss and regret. It is especially well-crafted with its sinewed study of human relationships, and humans that desperately try to relate with each other.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTristana, 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 filmu0026#39;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.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFernando Reyu0026#39;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. In a sense, it is a film about age, how when we reach a certain point in our lives we see things much clearer and as it is, rather than try to twist things to our advantage. The way Reyu0026#39;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.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn spite of all its dramatic turns of events, Tristana is not an emotional and angsty film in its portrayal of its charactersu0026#39; lives. Instead it is a soft and peaceful film that sympathetically accepts its charactersu0026#39; flaws as much as it forgives them. It is a film that evokes the intricate feeling of looking back in our dark and troubled past and finding the exquisite moments of happiness amidst all the cynicism and grit. When, towards the end, Rey reaches the peace that he has been struggling so hard to attain throughout the film, he notes, u0026#39;Itu0026#39;s snowing so hard outside, but in this house, Iu0026#39;m nice and warm. Whatu0026#39;s there not to be happy about?u0026#39;. A silent recognition that peace is not bending reality to your own will, but merely, acceptance.”