
Tristana

As a young woman, Tristana is orphaned and taken under the guardianship of Don Lope, a respected member of the community, who takes advantage of his innocent charge. When Tristana falls in love with artist Horacio, she must learn to be more assertive in order to achieve independence from her nefarious guardian, or her blossoming relationship with Horatio is doomed.
Made roughly a decade after _Viridiana_, this was Louis Buñuel’s second (post-war) feature made in Spain, while the bulk of his filmography has been shot in either Mexico or France. It also shares a lot of the basic plot points with the aforementioned movie, although the subtext here is a bit too dense to unpack all of it in just one viewing. Most of all it’s - once again - about religion. Religious oppression. Religious guilt. Religious views on sexual relationships. The dynamics between religious people and atheists and how the former go to great lengths to force the latter to conform to their worldviews. Yeah, and that’s just scratching the surface. Definitely have to watch this again some time.