Blue My Mind doesn’t exactly fit into a single category. It’s part coming-of-age drama and part body horror filled with really strong emotional content. At times, it’s a dark view of being an alienated teenager with very little hope of a better future. This is the first feature film from Swiss writer/director Lisa Brühlmann, and it’s a truly remarkable achievement. Balancing all of these heavy themes is no easy task and she seems to have done it with ease.
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Mia (Luna Wedler) is a fifteen-year-old girl who has just moved to a new town with her parents. Her relationship with them is slightly strained, but the love is still there. She has to integrate herself into a new school, make new friends, and try to fit in all while her body is beginning to mature. She finds a friend in Gianna (Zoë Pastelle Holthuizen), the school wild child. They quickly bond over theft, booze, drugs, and boys. Mia tries to balance this with her school work but things begin to spiral downward when changes begin to happen to her body, ones she can’t explain. As these changes become more and more apparent, she begins to rely more on her vices, delving deeper into drugs and throwing herself into dangerous sexual situations. The changes aren’t in line with reaching puberty, her toes become webbed, her legs are covered in what looks like bruises, and she’s developed an appetite for raw fish. She has no clue what to do but if she continues down this disturbingly dark road, she may never find out.
There are so many ways this film could have gone, but it keeps itself grounded in reality, sort of. It has a dream-like quality to it all where you sometimes question if what’s happening is actually real. Selling the entire premise is actress Luna Wedler, a true revelation. There are these moments where she is just lost in what’s happening to her, curled up on her bed or lies with her mother, you get the child in her is still hurting. At the same time, she’s seen making these very reckless adult decisions that put you deep into her fractured state of mind. As fantastical as some of the elements may be, the story and situations feel very real. Mia numbs the changes to her body with booze and men in a demoralizing manner. Wedler, along with Pastelle Holthuizen (who also appear together in Amateur Teens) drive the picture with their multi-layered and nuanced performances.
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The color palette of the film is filled with blues and greys, they mirror certain emotions in the film. Cinematographer Gabriel Lobos experiments with those colors all while deliver some truly beautiful moments. The aquatic themes in the film are displayed in certain ways that are so astonishingly beautiful. There’s one in particular in the final minutes of the film that really stands out, but I’ll refrain from discussing it further in fear of diving a bit too far into spoiler territory.
Blue My Mind doesn’t really do anything new when it comes to exploring certain themes, but it does present them in a unique new way. The horror elements of the story are more an allegory of how teenage girls view puberty and acceptance. Brühlmann has proven right out of the gate to have a keen vision of where she wants to go as a filmmaker. Where she goes from here is up to her, the world is going to be watching her, and waiting to be taken deep into her world.
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