Tristana (1970) - Luis Buñuel

The decade of the seventies of the last century meant the last couple of quinquenniums in the filmography of the giant spanish filmmaker Buñuel, who had already traveled a long way, from Europe to Mexico, and after many years there, he definitely returned to the old continent. The Milky Way (1969), corrosive look to the Christian religious world, was his previous exercise, he had already settled definitively to shoot European productions, began the final stage of his career, the French stage, with actors mostly of that nationality and repeating the beautiful Catherine Denueve as his protagonist, after Belle de jour (1967). One of the greatest confessed references in the director's cinema, Benito Pérez Galdós, is the author of the novel that inspires the Buñuel film on this occasion, the bizarre and tragic story of an attractive young woman, an orphan in the care of an older man, who falls in love and obsesses with the young woman, makes her his wife, and at the same almost his caregiver; but that union, being she prone to other romances, and he extremely jealous, will bring tragic consequences, for both characters, physical and psychological mutilations. Among his actors, Buñuel would also count the great Fernando Rey again, in a film that although it is not usually counted among his most exalted works, it is undoubtedly an important piece in his oeuvre.

                

Two women approach a boarding school, they are Saturna (Lola Gaos) and Tristana (Deneuve), they go to see the son of the first, Saturn (Jesus Fernandez), deaf and dumb. They return to house, where Saturna is the servant, the gentleman is Don Lope (Fernando Rey), tutor of Tristana, whose mother, deceased, entrusted her. The aristocrat Don Lope, in economic problems, courts his protege, who seems to correspond him. Diseases begin to torment Don Lope, Tristana takes care of him, but she longs for more freedom, she wants to go out, she does it furtively, and she meets a painter, Horacio (Franco Nero), with whom an idyll gets concreted. But when the artist finds out that she has a husband, her guardian, he gets angry; Don Lope in turn suspects Tristana's love affairs, but the girl already acts stubbornly, defying the tutor, and even plans to escape, to flee with Horacio. After confronting both men, Horacio and the girl leave, they spend two years quickly, until one day, without warning, Tristana returns, with Horacio, but seriously ill, a disease that makes it necessary to amputate her one leg, and in that state, she returns to the residence of Don Lope. Horacio tries to be with her, but her temperament has made her cold, distant, reproaches him while her husband's health declines. At the end, a seriously ill Don Lope requires the doctor, Tristana only pretends to call the medic, he dies.

The film is based on the avatars of an attractive young girl who is left in the care of a tutor, a female character who has been orphaned, in the care of an older man, a similar subject that we had already appreciated in Buñuel in The Young one (1960), and warmly in Viridiana (1961), the filmmaker seems to have liked that origin for his character. And on the other side, Don Lope, an individual who is capable of letting a thief escape, to whom he assigns the role of the weak, whom he must help in whatever situation, and with that excuse he bases an in-the-long-run sterile anarchy. The old man is a point of contradictions, against the police, because they represent the system, against the clergy, the Christian church and other canons of society, something that obviously has to do with the director's own affiliations. This position, which is alien to reality, is reflected in the pyrrhic reluctance to haggle costs when auctioning his properties, to accept his reality, which is that he is in bankruptcy, we heard him utter "cures in my house, never", "I know that Christ was the first socialist ", we heard him deny the vile money and the slavery of the human to it, but finally we will see that he never detaches himself from what he tries to repudiate. He rejects a duel for being at first blood, something he considers to be little serious and unworthy of his sponsorship, he is an old-fashioned individual, aspiring to be a rebel, a progressive, without much success in being so. He is an old personage, his age and his attitude are reflected from his first appearance, when he directs compliments to a girl, she calling him old; the role is established from the beginning, the condition of old that will weigh on Don Lope in the whole film. Also, the characterization and makeup work accentuate that character of almost senescence. Naturally, Fernando Rey, always distinguished, always splendid, as Buñuel would say, had become an alter ego of the director, who reflects through the actor his soul of a certain anarchist impulse, of nonconformity, with everything that society represents, has a particular idea of ​​freedom that will take shape in the director, until reaching the delirious state of The Phantom of Liberty (1974). Jealousy is now one of the pullers of the picture, a subject not very assiduous in the director actually, jealousy that drives the old man crazy, who feels cheated by two young people -it is sickly his way, about an apparently agonizing Tristana says "she does not escape from me anymore, if she enters my house again she does not come out"-, and that will have, indirectly, the tragic consequence of the amputation of the leg. "An honest woman, with a broken leg and in her house," he says, the filmmaker plays with the symbolism, which is brutally captured in the film.

The director uses the resource of connecting a sequence with another, a reality or moment with another, between his two central characters, as when we see Don Lope, reunited with his aristocratic comrades, dedicating praises to the woman, appearing next the motivation of the praises, Tristana; then, while the girl kisses her artist lover, we see the old tutor suddenly rise from his bed, restless and alert, as if he feels that the object of his desire is deceiving him. In this way, he contrasts the actions of one and the other, Tristana and Don Lope, following one's actions, the other person's actions, linking and drawing parallels between their paths, their characters that are oppositely varying. And actually there is an opposite journey in the paths of the protagonists, whose contrast is reinforced with that narrative resource, the character of her gets acquiring vigor, shet defends herself, she already responds to the constrictions of Lope; there are severe changes in their humanities, she is no longer the submissive young girl, her character, after the mutilation, has soured. He even invites priests to his home to enjoy chocolate, a theme that Buñuel said was very much his in real life; even the painter, initially without greater elegance, appears well dressed in the final segment. In that sense also, it will be interesting to appreciate one of the eternal watchwords in the audiovisual language of the filmmaker, the feet, adopting new ways now. The slippers -an obvious Buñuelian allegory for the connoisseur of his work- become a conductive thread, a vehicle through which the relationship of protected and guardian, wife and husband evolves. She takes care of him first, carrying his slippers and putting them on, but when she reaches independence, when her new character and temperament begin to manifest, she throws his slippers to the trash. As it had become usual by then, Buñuel's camera has acquired sobriety, we could call it maturity, gliding calmly, going through environments and following actions, often acquires the perspective of the characters themselves, other times focusing on details, such as more than once we will see, with the food. The camera behaves particularly with neatness in the sequence of Tristana in the knees of Don Lope, like a girl, increasingly distant from the old man. We have zero music on the feature, no musical accompaniment, only a few trickle sounds, and diegetic sounds are the auditory accompaniment of the film. And we have a new member in the animal stock of the director, the canids, which will repeatedly appear, having one of them rabies, perhaps a wink to the dog at the end of The Young and the Damned (1950).

It returns the figure of the orthopedic leg, like the doll of Miroslava in The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1954), it is very appreciable to be able to notice, always, a cinematography as compact as Buñuel's, always coherent and always faithfully continuing the path of his audiovisual language. Plastically manifests another of the director's obsessions, his particular portraits of Christian figures, which we will now have in the image represented by Tristana, leaning suggestively on a statue, apparently of a Supreme Pontiff, a characteristic Christian representation by the filmmaker. The director wanted to shoot unequivocally in Toledo, territory known for him, the filmmaker rejoices in showing the streets, plastically sinuous, zigzagging, like the interior paths of the characters, even Buñuel asserted that this was the only one of his films that could not have been filmed anywhere else than in Spain. By day, with light, and dark in the night, shady, the streets of Toledo, with their old architecture, house the characters, being exemplary that dark frame of old Don Lope retiring, beaten, humiliated, deprived of his toy, his object of desire. Thus, we have the detail, and returning with Tristana, of her always deciding between two options, generating ambivalences with grapes, columns, streets, she repeatedly rejects offers of marriage from Horacio, she has uncertain relationship with deaf and dumb Saturn; yes, her actions are sinuous, like Toledo streets, always crossroads, two roads, like Tristana and her taste for choosing between two options. It is also ambivalent their relationship, being both guardian and husband, being her wife but at the same time almost a maid, in a story where the servants have importance in their respective sordid universes, now it is Saturna, as in her moment it was Ramona, in Viridiana. Buñuel claimed that, thinking about it years later, he would have liked to have two different actresses to embody the two moments of Tristana, before and after the loss of her leg, a desire that will later materialize in That obscure object of desire (1977). Surrealism unfolds only in the final sequence, the only moment where the linearity of his story breaks, everything has been consummated, we have a bunch of rapidly concatenated sequences that summarize a good part of the film -novety in the director this resource-, and ending with the head of Don Lope again in the bell, a bell that acquires another meaning, since it sounded at the beginning, it is prologue and epilogue at the same time. In the end, Don Lope calls the clerics to his home, they drink chocolate, she, completely ruthless, ends up provoking his death, and in the novel, by the way, did not kill him, it is a detail of the director, who reflects his personal touch of individuals tasting chocolate, as the filmmaker in his life liked to do, with sugar cubes, one more time, the male character is a reflection, to some extent an alter ego of the filmmaker. The actors, both Rey and Deneuve, are of course at the height of the director, demonstrating why they were in those years his usual performers, in a film fully embedded in the final stage of Spanish, his french stage, a film that wanted to shoot a decade ago in Mexico, something that was frustrated after the scandal raised by Viridiana, but that then came to see the light. The great Buñuel had reached his final maturity, his style reached its final form, the final exercises of Calanda's genius would come.

Nazarín (1959) - Luis Buñuel

Having Buñuel approached warmly to his return to work with European producers first with Death in the Garden (1956) and then with That is the Dawn (1956), would approach the Spanish to this work in which he outlined one of the figures that in next films will be repeated, that of a religious man of singular adventures. The genius of Talanda in this opportunity will adapt a not very well-known work of one of his major literary influences, the great countryman of his Benito Pérez Galdós, who tells us a story that certainly is not surprising that had powerfully seduced the Iberian director, the story of a a priest of very firm faith, apparently unbreakable principles that will be put to great test when the religious applies with the greatest discipline those principles, when he puts them into practice only to obtain rejection, violence even, in those to whom he tries to profess his faith. Naturally, the original work undergoes some modifications by the director, adapting certain details to the reality and Mexican contexts. The film had two-faces results, some repudiation and accusations of anti religion, but in turn recognitions at the Festival de Cannes, in a work fully identifiable as the work of this great great filmmaker, carrier of many of his most identifying stamps, increasingly developed.

                 

The action begins in a humble Mexican town, a house in which its tenants, many of them prostitutes, live between austerity. There lives also Father Nazario (Francisco Rabal), who suffers a robbery, and who lives particularly in misery, as well as Beatriz (Marga López), a woman who thinks about killing herself, and suffers for her past with Pinto (Noé Murayama); he abandons her. Shortly after, Andara (Rita Macedo), one of the prostitutes, has a discussion with another woman of that ilk, they fight, the police look for her, and Nazario hides her in his house. Andara, wanted, has to flee, burns evidence of his presence, too many problems for Father Nazario, who is almost expelled from his order, leaves town, claims willl live on alms. Nazario leaves, arrives at a construction, where he asks to work in exchange only for food, but is chased away by the other workers; then he meets with Beatriz, in another town, helps with the seemingly miraculous recovery of an ill girl. In another location, and again with Andara, she meets Ujo (Jesús Fernández), a dwarf who courts her, while the Pinto also reappears, wants to take Beatriz. But finally they can not escape from the police, who follow them and find them, arrest Andara, separate her from Ujo, Nazario is also arrested, and Beatriz ends up leaving with Pinto.

In this film the director, according to his own words, in his book My Last Sigh, preferring even the trivial to the aesthetically very elaborate, wanted to give us a truer, closer approach, something denoted in that curious beginning of the film, with that stamp that literally almost "jumps" to life, its protagonists almost come alive to give us an idea of ​​proximity to the folklore of the land that is going to be portrayed. And that was certainly the idea of ​​the filmmaker, to dispense with excessive ornaments, the camera with subtle movements shows us the environment where everything will happen in that initial sequence, with measured glides of the camera, soft travellings for this. This is how we approach the world of Father Nazario, "I am Catholic, Apostolic and Roman", defines himself, as starting from the innermost fiber of Christianity, in those three ranks, with Rome as a great reference, living in austerity, enduring some mockery, among which, initially, he is told that with his lifestyle he loses his dignity. And in fact, he lives among poor people, in precarious places, with marginal beings, vulgar prostitutes, thieves, disputes, people of low ilk, this priest who comes to be a continuation of Death in the Garden (1956)'s Father Lizardi, with the so referential theme of religion, always present in the work of Spanish, and always, of course, under his scathing and acid look. Nazario is a priest who professes Catholicism with a fullness that will make it unacceptable for human canons, for daily and pragmatic existence; his attitude is submissive, of surrender, resignation to his destiny as a servant of Catholicism, while the epiphany occurs, while his idea of ​​Catholicism is divided, of what is Christianity in the praxis of men, in the daily reality. It is fascinating his dilemma, driven by circumstances, completely breaks with all known religious convention, even stripped of his clothes, because the world must stop recognizing him as a man of God. Since then, a real change is gestating, he will find himself alien to wherever he goes, he will be an outsider, without a place, perfectly exemplified when he comes to the construction, he looks for work, even in exchange for food alone. The consequences are dire, the workers, threatened, throw him out, he who wanted to work without profit, just to survive, without causing harm, ends up awakening envy, greed, violence; eloquent the shots that are heard while he moves away.

It is as if his very existence carries negative things, his willingness to help his neighbor, genuine, ends paradoxically enraging the neighbor, who seems not ready for this, for such a pure Christianity; the paradox, the irony, are thus served. Nazario affirms that he is on a journey of pilgrimage, a trip that will end by shattering his faith, a quixotic journey that will lead him to live on alms, not to stop practicing the gospel, but splitting from reality, from a Catholicism that does not correspond to his conception of faith, to his praxis. Naturally, his trip has its particular differences, as the Quixote, his madness, his behavior, will cause problems, is his downfall, and can not get away from it, but unlike the classic by Cervantes, while Nazario imparts his concept of faith, his journey is different from that of Don Quixote, since he is not a character who wanders between sanity and insanity. This is a man of faith, a completely sane religious who makes a voyage of astonishing discovery, in which his values ​​and beliefs will be broken, he does not die as the self-proclaimed knight, not physically, but a part of him seems to have died, a death spiritual that is being announced -"for the first time in my life, I find it hard to forgive", he professes, his faith is breaking down-. In the end, after everything experienced, everything traveled, hesitate to receive the alms, what preached, finally cry, we have the uncertainty, what will this cracked subject do now, because after the initial rejection, then accepts the pineapple, sobs, is the final break of his beliefs, proclaiming and living on alms, rejects first, doubt, receives it, is symbolic that final action. Something of Bergmanian is in his religious doubts, in that skepticism that ends up hovering over him; if in Bergman the characters speak to God, and silence as a response is what upsets them, in Buñuel despair is more a bitter awakening, a bubble of vital, divine, existential conceptions that burst. Yes, the rupture is consummated, he walks without definite direction, neither physical nor spiritual, while the drum roll sounds, the only musical accompaniment, that Buñuel had to add for commitment with the producer. A Christian parallel is drawn in him, he is humiliated, taken almost to the extreme of Christ, but he is not divine, he will not endure like Jesus, but he will yield, he will break, and he will remain in uncertainty, and he is effectively portrayed in parallel to Jesus, they see him barefoot, with a cane, with women who seem to act as his apostles, he is even asked to perform miracles. They also believe him a healer, it is one of the many reactions of humans to interact with the priest who practices Catholicism, whom they call a heretic, a bizarre preacher, he is in fact an individual who undergoes quixotization, but this time they are not cavalry books, now it is the gospel. We have, ending the film, the sacrilegious of the jail, his final contact with humans before epiphany, affirming this one, "good ones over there, bad ones over here", it is almost the final interaction with that society and conventionalism that he escapes from.

Interesting and significant moments are, as when Andara begins to question Nazario, simple questions, simple questions of apparently obvious answers, in that symbolic simplicity, the priest is already facing the first questions, but his faith is still intact, he is just coming out to the environment that will fall apart. It is a detail of the filmmaker the fact that when Nazario is ready to answer the questions of Andara, his voice gradually fades. But there is more, the characters of Nazarin are sordid, Beatrice's conduct is certainly strange, disturbing is his bipolar behavior, after first seemingly suffering from the departure of the Pinto, he laughs with a jaw swing, and then have bizarre fantasies with him, having then disturbing torsions. She is horrified when she is made to see that deep down, she does not want spiritual relief or pilgrimage, she only wants carnal love, and revelation makes her explode in shame and laughter, and that's for both women seek the love of the man. Beatriz, in the end, in her strange nature, rests her head on Pinto's shoulder, bizarre masochism, can not escape from her own hell, and that is because in the end, there is no return, as Nazario had a quixotic journey, all the tormented characters end up worse than they started. Great moments of surrealism leaves Buñuel to flow in his film, one of them being the "deformation" of the frames, of the image, to enter into the psyche of Beatriz, who longs for the Pìnto, who wishes to possess him, to deprive him of his will, she wants to own a man. Her desire is intensely carnal, what apparently is her undoing, the Pinto, is what she most yearns to possess, but to possess in an absolute way, to take away his will, she soothes herself in a disturbing way, her nature is certainly ambivalent. Much surrealism is fully present and evident in the film, this having one of its most acute moments in the image of the laughing Christ, delirious tints are reached when Andara begins his flight. Another of the figures, Andara, after deciding to flee, burns all the evidence of his presence and direction, with a saint in front of everything, leading the incineration. Critics have found over the years diverse and indecipherable figures in the film, which is responsible for having fun and split Buñuel, asserting that he is as intrigued as the public; a good example of this is the pineapple of the final sequence. Technically, interesting visual resources employs the director, using images as elements of transition to move from one sequence to another, correct resource. Likewise, we observed in the film a dark tone, courtesy of the refined photography of the master Gabriel Figueroa, with whom it is known that Buñuel had small discrepancy when correcting some excessively precious frame, because Buñuel preferred closeness and simplicity instead of gratuitous ornament. In spite of it, Figueroa manages to produce the dark surroundings, the shady frames in which the confused and tormented characters play. Exemplary is the sequence when both women profess their love for the priest, and symbolically, he is unable to offer true shelter and response, plays with a tiny snail. The composition of the frames, the behavior of the camera and the shots used in this pleasant sequence are exemplary, aesthetically and visually of the most accomplished in the film by the director. In the same way, the love figure embodied by Buñuel is singular, something unprecedented in his filmography, the brief couple, the dwarf Ujo and a prostitute, the most marginal love, and probably the most beautiful love he portrayed, where all the differences, included obviously the physics, are drawn. At the end we see the dwarf, defeated, alone, looking down, while the police drive away his beloved prostitute, the most heartbreaking Buñuelian love. Another of Buñuel's winks, the feet, manifests when the mother of a girl dies in one of the precarious villages, and the camera shows her swollen limbs. A film of the most referential by Buñuel, carries his artistic DNA, his obsessions, his doubts, his discoveries, and, in short, continues his evolution as an artist; indispensable work for the follower of the buñuelian oeuvre.