DIRECTED BY: Pipilotti Rist
FEATURING: Ewelina Guzik, Sven Pippig, Sabine Timoteo, Elisabeth Orth
PLOT: A whimsical young woman brimming with optimism moves breezily through her hometown in Switzerland, picking up new friends Werwen (Sven Pippig)—a sickly momma’s boy—and Edna (Sabine Timoteo)—a cross-dressing gardener—along the way. The trio’s mission is to teach others to live without fear through experimental color hypnosis.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: Pepperminta is a creative, experimental, singular film that defies standard classification. It is at once funny, thought-provoking, insightful, fanciful, sexual, and wistful; it contains memorable visuals, bizarre characters, impromptu musical numbers, and flashes of complete fantasy. It’s wonderfully weird, to be sure, but its sentimentality and naive perspective can be cloying and alienating for some audiences.
COMMENTS: Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist is known for saturated colors and themes of harmony and sensuality in her short works. Pepperminta marks her first foray into feature-length narrative film, allowing her to expand upon these concepts in a more accessible manner. Inspired by Pippi Longstocking, the story is a fantastical urban adventure set in a magical realist universe that’s open to Utopian ideas, and the central character is unflappable in her quest to bring joy, beauty, and strength to everyone she meets. Pepperminta transforms the souls of those she chooses to be a part of her mission, healing them with flowers, touch, music, and contagious confidence. She believes that through certain combinations of color a person’s outlook can be altered, and demonstrates this in several wacky encounters.
Pepperminta is primarily driven by its mysterious but likable characters. The title character is quick-to-smile, red-haired, freckled, and feels completely at ease in her own body. She wins others over to her side with unshakable kindness, even if her weirdness confuses most people at first. Werwen is shy, middle-aged, and allergic to everything; he easily falls in love with Pepperminta, most likely because she’s the first girl with whom he’s interacted. With her help he conquers his fear of the outside world bred by his overprotective mother. Edna is taciturn and serious-minded, slowly released from her hard outer shell as she opens herself up to her new friends, even tapping into the magical aspects of Pepperminta’s personality. There’s also a surprisingly spry, dancy senior lady who foresees her own death, a chef who prepares delightfully sweet cuisine, a police officer intent on giving our heroes a speeding ticket, a group of professors inextricably strung together with their own neckties, a dead grandmother who gives advice through a seashell, and the spirit of Pepperminta’s inner child.
Aside from its quixotic script, zany characters, peppy musical score, and color science, the film offers a refreshingly blunt and open view of female sexuality and body image, depicting menstrual blood as a sacred, life-giving fluid and the nude female body as a beautiful form at any age. Some of this imagery is too overt and visceral, but this supportive, positive portrayal of feminist themes outweighs any ick factor. The whole proceedings are populated with a wealth of sensual, elemental feelings and scenes, allowing the viewer to lose him or herself in imagined moments of touch, pleasure, and comfort. Rist has an impressive ability to communicate texture through her visuals.
Rist employs a range of imaginative and experimental visual techniques, often reminiscent of her short art films. Colors swirl and blend like squirts of ink in water, shifting between neon and negative displays and impossibly fusing with the real-life environments. Pepperminta’s color theory is discussed and explored at length, and by the end of the film it’s hard not to believe that she’s onto something—mainly due to how effectively Rist grabs her audience with welcoming, captivating use of color. There is also a good amount of stop-motion (both animated and live-action) takes, underwater shots, and gleeful musical numbers, resulting in a multifaceted, lighthearted journey through the artist’s imagination.
Pepperminta’s infectious optimism and idealistic themes are sure to alienate many skeptical viewers— and indeed at times the film is too saccharine for its own good—but Rist’s conviction in her ideas shines through, and personally I found it charming. Once in a while it’s nice to see a rose (and purple, blue, green, red, yellow, and orange) tinted view of the world. It’s as an exuberant escape from the real-life doldrums of convention and routine. And if that view can be presented with a high dosage of weirdness, all the better!
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