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Posted: **Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:19 am**

On July 24, Diane Kurys’ Peppermint Soda gets a UK DVD/Blu-ray premiere. This touching coming-of-age tale is set in early 1960s France and is based on the director’s own upbringing. The film also screens in BFI Southbank’s ‘A Woman with a Movie Camera’ strand in July, and will form part of the Scalarama 2017 programme.

Posted: **Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:57 am**

Posted: **Wed Jun 07, 2017 12:11 pm**

Who's old enough to remember this title being mentioned as "forthcoming" in a Criterion printed catalogue circa 2000?

Posted: **Wed Jun 07, 2017 12:54 pm**

peerpee wrote:Who's old enough to remember this title being mentioned as "forthcoming" in a Criterion printed catalogue circa 2000?

I do! This and Cocktail Molotov were both mentioned in, I think, a booklet that came with Armageddon.
That catalog also mentioned Dodesukaden, which came out over a decade later, and without the commentary it was supposed to feature.

Posted: **Wed Jun 07, 2017 6:41 pm**

Also still waiting for Cousin Cousine, Eisentstein Silent Years and Shanghai Express...

Posted: **Wed Jun 07, 2017 8:08 pm**

I really loved the word that the forum used to apply to those announced but never released titles: "ex-certainties."

Posted: **Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:05 pm**

I still have this printed color catalogue (with artwork and specs) which was in one of a Criterion DVD I had bought (perhaps "Brazil" or "Solaris") :

"Cousin Cousine" is "coming soon"
"Diabolo Menthe" too

I also remember another Jean-Charles Tacchella movie is in this catalogue : "Escalier C"

Posted: **Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:37 pm**

Full specs announced:

Peppermint Soda (Diablo menthe)
A film by Diane Kurys

Dual Format Edition (DVD/Blu-ray) release on 24 July 2017

This autobiographical coming-of-age tale, the debut feature of underrated French director Diane Kurys (Entre nous, Sagan), is an ode to teenage summers, first kisses and first losses set in 1963.

Peppermint Soda will be released for the first time in the UK in a Dual Format Edition by the BFI on 24 July 2017 accompanied by numerous extras including an interview with the director from 2008.

Teenage sisters Anne (Éléonore Klarwein) and Frédérique (Odile Michel) couldn’t be more different: introverted Anne, on the threshold of adolescence, is trying to understand the world around her, while outgoing, politically aware Frédérique is beginning her first love affair. The film charts their relationships with their parents (a Jewish couple who have separated), their friends and each other.

Offering an intricate view of adolescence in 1960s France, Peppermint Soda recalls Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) and encapsulates the upsurge in liberality during this radical period.

Just ahead of the release, BFI Southbank will be screening the film on Monday 17 July at 6.15pm in NFT3 as part of the Women with a Movie Camera strand that celebrates women’s contribution to film. More details: https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/peppermintsoda" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Special features
- Presented in High Definition and Standard Definition
- Original theatrical trailer
- Interview with Diane Kurys (2008, 33 mins)
- Scrapbook (2008, 3 mins): Diane Kurys explores her collection of photographs and production materials
- Illustrated booklet with film credits and a new essays by Sophie Mayer and Michael Brooke

Product details
RRP: £19.99/ Cat. no. BFIB1266 / Cert 12
France / 1977 / colour / 101 mins / French with English subtitles / original aspect ratio 1.66:1 // BD50: 1080p, 24fps, PCM 2.0 mono (48kHz/24-bit) / DVD9: PAL, 25fps, PCM 2.0 mono (48kHz/16-bit)

Posted: **Tue Sep 05, 2017 11:26 pm**

Well, it only took 39 or so years for me to see this (which I wanted to see when it first showed up in Chicago, but never got around to seeing). A really wonderful movie overall -- but I wonder why "Merde, merde, merde ..." was translated as "screw you, screw you ...".

The BFI release looked mostly very good -- though a (very) few segments seemed a little more faded than the rest of the film.

I note that this movie provided some bits of additional story during the credits -- a procedure that became the norm for Studio Ghibli films. Query -- was this relatively novel in 1977?

Posted: **Wed Sep 06, 2017 1:32 pm**

Michael Kerpan wrote:Well, it only took 39 or so years for me to see this (which I wanted to see when it first showed up in Chicago, but never got around to seeing).

Interestingly (at least to me), 39 or so years ago in Chicago is when and where I first saw this film myself. I've never seen it since. I'm glad to hear the new Blu-ray edition is good. I will order it.

Posted: **Wed Sep 06, 2017 3:27 pm**

Most of this Blu-Ray looked utterly gorgeous.

I can't remember who reviewed this -- Dave Kehr or Jonathan Rosenbaum -- but whoever it was,the review left a lasting impression. (We were VERY impoverished when this first came out -- a couple of years later I probably could have gone to see it).

Posted: **Sat Sep 09, 2017 10:54 pm**

I checked -- and it must have been a Siskel review that made me want to see this. Rosenbaum never reviewed it (and may never have seen it -- as he disliked Kurys's later films) and Kehr's review opinion was no better than middling.

(And I almost never saw Ebert's written reviews).

Posted: **Sun Sep 10, 2017 8:32 pm**

It's odd. I wouldn't have gone to see this myself without first having read a review tipping me off. Who the hell knew who Kurys was 39 years ago? But I have no memory of such a review.

Posted: **Thu Jan 11, 2018 9:58 pm**

I thought this was okay. Too many inconsequential small details and vignettes early on told me this was probably a little too autobiographical in origin and the filmmaker didn't have enough distance from their material to inject the proper amount of novelty into the mundane proceedings. But eventually the film congeals into a pleasant enough character portrait-- albeit one confusingly sidelined often for POVs from other characters that shouldn't be included-- and I found myself liking it more than I thought I would when it started, though this is still a venture of small stakes and small returns.

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