Blue My Mind (2017 film)

Summary

"Mia's body is changing." A coming-of-age parable about a 15-year-old woman on the brink on a dramatic transformation who sees her whole world descend into turmoil and doubt.

Details

Promotional image for Blue My Mind (2017 film)...

• Release Date: 2017
• Country/Language: Switzerland, Swiss German
• Genres/Technical: Drama, Fantasy
• Setting: Modern Switzerland
• Runtime: 1 hr 37 min
• Starring: Luna Wedler, Zoë Pastelle Holthuizen, Regula Grauwiller
• Director: Lisa Brühlmann
• Writer: Lisa Brühlmann, Dominik Locher
• Producer/Production Co: Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Tellfilm
• View Trailer: (link)
• IMDB Page: (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: not rated (equivalent to an R)

The gore and body-horror are surprisingly mild for a parable about puberty, but the film does contain enough profanity, full-frontal nudity, teen sex, and drug and alcohol abuse to probably make it a tough sell as a family movie, at least for U.S. audiences....

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• Ss___ (One and a Half Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian)

Could be taken as a different take on the usual Deep One horror story: it downplays the cosmic and body horror, and substitutes the anxiety, isolation, and turmoil of the horror of growing up. It's not necessarily incompatible with Lovecraftian horror, though it's a safe bet that the film-makers didn't even have Lovecraft on their radar when making this film, and resemblances are surely coincidental. Still, scenario writers wanting to try something a little different can surely make use of this film as inspiration for a different take on Lovecraft's Deep Ones, who, after all, also go through a difficult transformation into fish-people upon coming of age....

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• Nick Allen at RogerEbert.com (link) (Contains reviews of two unrelated films) - ""Blue My Mind” boasts a few discomforting moments of body horror, especially as she tries to alter her body from its progression. ... The script’s predetermined nature leaves the viewer colder than they should feel."
• Rob Aldam at Backseat Mafia (link) - "Blue My Mind is a fresh take on the coming-of-age drama which uses the usual clichés to produce a unique slice of cinema. Brühlmann’s feature debut impresses with its ingenuity and willingness to take risks."
• Jeannie Blue at Cryptic Rock (4/5 Stars) (link) - "Blue My Mind is, therefore, a delicious mix of the self-discovery treatise – one in which our protagonist, like most youths, often wonders if she is normal – and a fairy-tale fantasy. The trick here is the balance struck by the film’s brilliant director..."
• Brent McKnight at The Last Thing I See (B+) (link) - "Luna Wedler delivers a bold, fearless performance as 15-year-old Mia. The new girl at school, she rebels against her overbearing mom and clueless dad, and falls in with a crew of bad girls... ...she undergoes a startling metamorphosis that would make Kafka proud."

Synopsis (SPOILERS)

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)

A teen's world turns upside-down as she begins a difficult transformation into a mermaid.

Notes

Associated Mythos Elements

• race: Deep Ones

Keeper Notes

• Lovecraft's unreliable narrators tend to describe the transformation into a Deep One with the Innsmouth Look upon coming of age as a change into an inhuman monster, and perhaps friends and family of someone going through the difficult change would agree (certainly the stressed-out family and grossed-out friends of this movie would agree!), but the final transformation need not be a completely horrible thing, as suggested in the final lines of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth (fiction)": "The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror. I do not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up. Stupendous and unheard-of splendours await me below, and I shall seek them soon... I shall plan my cousin's escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever." - HPL