The virginal Tristana (Catherine Deneuve) goes to live with her guardian, Don Lope (Fernando Rey), an older man who eventually breaks through his facade of respectability and seduces her. (His justification: he loves her "purely.") She repays him for robbing her of her childhood by preying on his jealousy and taunting him with her whimsies, but her own desire is nullified in the process. Tristana is a study in institutionalized hypocrisy (Don Lope's) and dependency (Tristana's). Bu-uel biographer Francisco Aranda writes of this masterpiece: "The narrative destruction of Tristana is that of Un chien andalou. Permitting the spectator no complacency creates a total distantiation...Tristana becomes revolutionary (because) Tristana is truth...Things are thus: Spain, the provinces, Don Lope, the Church, woman, and so on..."