Peppermint Frappé

Intense psychological drama tells a slightly surreal, but also fascinating and creepy tale with a hint of both Bunuel and Hitchcock influence to it; Geraldine Chaplin is mesmerizing in a triple role.

A very proper, very religious and very conservative doctor is obsessed with his long-time friend's wife, and because the events happen during the Franco repression , he acts according to the dictates of time and place :Extermination! the film is dedicated to Luis Bunuel.A very political, expressionist film.

I enjoyed the film, although I never took Saura to be a great director (as the film's dedicatee Bunuel was sometimes). Geraldine Chaplin is an actress I haven't noticed much in the past: she's very fluent here in her two roles, one staid and one swinging. The real revelation for me is Lopez Vasquez in a stunning performance as the obsessed doctor. I thought of other sad, obsessed characters: Trintignant as the fascist in The Conformist, and Bogart as the scriptwriter in In A Lonely Place. Just to watch him as Chaplin dances around the room with her husband, so free and easy, and he cannot respond to the gaiety in any way, it's awful.

Anyone familiar with Bunuel will find a treat of similar proportions in Peppermint Frappe's fascinating study of a fetishistic mind. This film is so carefully gripping that its mild-manneredness hides its thriller nature; instead, the film favours a meticulous reconstruction of a man's past desire projected into a vertiginous present he now creates. For all the layered desire and sexual tension, however, it is the subtle power of sublimation that works best. Consider the long, breath-taking seduction scene of the radiologist, the nurse & the rowing machine. The art direction is excellent and the opening credit music is great. Where the film loses its edge is in the direction, which is not as skilled as that of the dedicatee. This is more noticeable at the end, where the camera movement gives way to freeform and has a very dated late 60's look. A pivotal song in the film is likewise hard to take seriously. Still, the film is mesmerizing & scenic, & Jose of the 4 names- the radiologist, gives a tremendously controlled performance. It's his film and he carries it brilliantly. Ana, the nurse, is excellently portrayed as well. Overall, fascinating but not sharp enough

Alfredo Mayo returns from Africa with.a new bride, Geraldine Chaplin (in a blonde wig). His old friend, Doctor José Luis López Vázquez lusts for her, but she loves her husband. So Vázquez begins to transmute his adoring, previously unnoticed assistant into her. Good thing she's played by Miss Chaplin (in a brunette wig). As she begins to become more like the woman he wants, he continues to try to seduce Miss Chaplin (in a blonde wig).

Carlos Saura's gloss on VERTIGO (albeit one based on an idea by Saura) is, like Hitchcock's, a meditation on sexual obsession. Saura's movies are inherently mannered in a way that is still not clear to me, and filled with symbolism that is likewise obscure. So the unconsidered trappings of wealth that Vázquez ignores, as well as the sickly-sweet creme-de-menthe drinks he plies the objects of his desire have some meaning. Perhaps it is simply a matter of noting that the movie is dedicated to Bunuel to label it a contemptuous satire of the rich.