After the death of her mother, the beautiful and impressionable Tristana is taken under the wing of Don Lope. An aging Don Juan with an outdated, hypocritical code of honor, he defiles Tristana’s body and her spirit – alternately treating her as his child or his lover, a lady or a servant. The selfish manipulations backfire in subversively subtle Buñuelian fashion – unnaturally transforming the young swan into a fickle monster of Don Lope’s own making. Mistreated and misshapen in one way or another, all characters in the film suffer under misuse of aristocratic power, as they play out Buñuel’s psychoanalysis of loathing and desire within the narrow, disorienting streets and faded palette of 1920’s Toledo – aging prematurely under corrupt conditions. – BG