Tristana

Tristana is a 1970 drama film co-written, directed and produced by Luis Buñuel, and starring Catherine Deneuve, Fernando Rey, and Franco Nero. The screenplay by Buñuel and Julio Alejandro adapts an 1892 realist novel of the same name by Benito Pérez Galdós. It is a Spanish-French-Italian co-production filmed in Toledo, Buñuel's one-time home, and represents his return to his native country after several years living and working abroad. It earned positive acclaim from critics, and was nominated for Best Foreign-Language Film at the 43rd Academy Awards. Plot The story is set in the late 1920s to early 1930s in the city of Toledo. Tristana is a young woman who, following the death of her mother, becomes a ward of notorious nobleman don Lope Garrido. Despite his advancing age, Don Lope refuses to change his playboy lifestyle, while maintaining strong yet increasingly-antiquated attitudes about honor, chivalry, and women. Claiming to defend the weak from corrupt institutions (while expressing support for leftist politics), Don Lope nonetheless preys on his new ward, entranced by her beauty and innocence. He thus treats her as wife as well as daughter from the age of 19, unbeknownst to the outside world. While Tristana initially accepts the arrangement, by age 21 she starts finding her voice, to demand to study music, art and other subjects with which she wishes to become independent, chafing under Don Lope, who thinks women are untrustworthy and should be kept at home. While sneaking out of the house against Lope's wishes, she meets Horacio, a young artist from Catalonia. The two fall in love and Horacio asks her to come live with him in Barcelona, but she remains apprehensive because of the Don's inescapable presence. Horacio confronts Don Lope outside his apartment, Lope slaps him and challenges him to a duel, and Hoarcio responds by simply punching him in the face. He and Tristana leave the following day. Five years later, Tristana returns, having suddenly fallen ill. She demands to be remanded to Don Lope's house so she can die there. Tristana survives but loses a leg in the process, which changes her prospects. She breaks up with Horacio and seemingly reinstates the previous relationship with Don Lope, but is now much more independent and openly defiant. Don Lope, whose health problems have only worsened, suddenly inherits money from his sister, which Tristana covets.