[Within] the confines of [Tristana's] rather melodramatic if morally resonant plot, which always borders on the perverse, as do all of the director's films, Buñuel has managed to interweave meanings that go far beyond the Electra theme. Throughout the film, Buñuel comments on the psychological effects of social dependance. (p. 52)

Buñuel's psychology is impeccable. Her mind a tabula rasa, it is logical that Tristana would become whatever her surroundings provide, that her psychic impulses would be directed by the will of her domineering guardian. (pp. 52-3)

Sexually, Tristana, after her initiation by Don Lope, becomes the sister of Belle de Jour…. Like Belle de Jour, Tristana is a woman whose sexuality has been perverted by a fear of seduction, by an older, forbidding father figure, and who can now respond only to the brutal and the perverse. (p. 53)

It is, of course, perfect justice...