Tristana

1970, Bunuel returns to Denueve. A story of old age and obsession. Also of youth, of compromises, of how love is twisted by the Church and by bourgeois values.
We won't rehearse the same lines about Bunuel using simple direction, pans to frame, and so on. A couple of comments only are necessary: Toledo is here shown more than some of Bunuel's other cities, we feel the atmosphere invades everywhere, everyone. Secondly, it would be wrong not to say that Bunuel is entirely simply, he does focus on certain things, objects. There is a wonderful story about Hitchcock describing one scene in this movie 'The camera pans from hands....to leg....to woman, and it is a different woman'. Although it is actually a cut, not a pan, the point stands. The picking out of in themselves nothing objects contains in it actually a whole world, a crazy world of constant changes. This requires an intelligence and sensitivity in the viewer that sometimes we feel we are not up to.
As for plot, we felt less sympathy towards the old man than perhaps many may. His belief in socialism, combined with his inability to take to his own 'personal' life, is mercilessly shown. Sympathy is hard to come by, unless one has perhaps lived a whole life themselves. This is a femininst film in many ways, even though we don't get to know Tristana too well. All men dissapoint. The scenes of Tristana clumping around, like the heartbeat of a conscious, are intense and angry.
As always, we have scenes and ambiguities (the mute/dumb?) that are hard to trace. We must learn not to try.
Like the films of Bresson, we appreciate watching Bunuel, but would be lying if we said we had quite achieved the point of love, or of understanding (not a facile diconstructive understanding, rather a 'letting be' embracal of the complexities of the piece). Maybe it'll take time. For now, simply a fascinating pleasure.