imdb .com wrote:
Flawed but fascinating, MYSTIQUE offers a rare opportunity to witness the relentlessly morose universe of the late Roger Watkins of LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET infamy filtered through the sensibilities of another filmmaker. In this case Roberta Findlay, resorting to her male alter ego of "Robert W. Norman", thereby perhaps accidentally initiating an unofficial trilogy of the downbeat with A WOMAN'S TORMENT and THE TIFFANY MINX. While Watkins, fresh from wowing fans and critics alike with his dirty movie debut HER NAME WAS LISA, obviously remains the premium interpreter of his self-confessed inner turmoil, Findlay certainly gives it the old college try, gamely taking on board all of the author's lofty idiosyncrasies. For the film at hand, these include an opening quote from French existential poet Paul Valéry (equating a drop of wine spilled in the ocean, from his poem "Le Vin Perdu", with the waste of a life lived on the sidelines) and borrowing the names of the wives of Gustav Mahler and Richard Wagner for his main characters where he, of course, gained genre notoriety as "Richard Mahler" ! True to form, soundtrack's liberally littered with highbrow selections from both composers' body of work.