Blue My Mind

I wasn't quite sure how to categorize this film while watching it. As most fairytales go, there are some dark elements. There are hopeful themes, too. Overall this is different enough to be interesting and I found the cinematography in various scenes to be very enchanting.

I think, the movie tried to explore the themes: "being yourselves" or "embracing yourselves with all your oddities" or "finding how special you are".

It is an interesting film, but leaves you confused at the end; all because one shot, I think, has gone wrong. The point is, the movie follows a grounded-realistic approach (not a surreal one). So, you expect the movie to give you enough information to build a believable world in which the story takes place. The problem is not with the believability, but with the incomplete information. So, at the end, you are left feeling that there is something missing.

This could have been fixed with the very first shot of the movie, in which it could have shown a new born lying on the beach crying, with no traces of any human around her. This would have raised the question, "who left her there?" or "where did she come from?". As these questions were quite satisfactorily answered in the movie, you would've felt that everything fell in place (including the theme). The parents' characters need a little development though.

A puberty tale of a different kind. Interesting premise told excruciating slow. Lots of salacious content to keep a teenage audience interested. The acting was good. But the story could have been told in a short live action film. For the glimmer of a premise and the acting alone I give this film a 6 (fair) out of 10. {Fantasy Drama}

I had no idea what the movie would be about. It seemed to be "just another" teen coming of age drama. There is more to that and I reckon most will already know it unless you are like me and try to watch movies with as little information as possible.

The acting is really good and apart from the usual stuff you may have seen in other movies (Thirteen and Bahnhoff Zoo are two that come to mind) has this otherworldy feel to it, that goes ... under your skin - no pun intended.

Apart from that, there are some sexual situations you may feel uncomfortable with, depending on your own sensibilities. Those do not just involve the main character girl (especially in one scene towards the end), but also video footage that is rather explicit and vividly showing sexual intercourse (pornograhic content you can find on the internet). It's just for a short moment, but in cast this ruins the movie for you, I thought you'd better know.

That all aside the movie ends in the only way that makes ... well sense in a way.

There are no shortage of films telling stories about young teens facing changes in life, especially puberty, and even such movies with a "creature feature" twist number more than a few. Among such company, 'Blue my mind' nonetheless stands as a fair competitor.

Yet the problem is that while the concept is solid, and there are some good ideas in the screenplay, the best word I can think of to describe the execution is "incomplete."

Mia (Luna Wedler) is having difficulty fitting into a new school or getting along with her parents, to the point that she wonders if they're actually related. Things start looking up as she befriends a fellow student, Gianna (Zoe Pastelle Holthuizen), a rather rebellious young woman whose "devil may care" lifestyle draws out behavior in Mia that contrasts with the stricter upbringing and expectations she has known. The bulk of 'Blue my mind' is devoted, narratively, to a "coming of age" exploration of who Mia is, or could be, or might want to be. The story is anchored by fine performances from Wedler and Holthuizen, but even so, the way these scenes play out feels a little forced, and inorganic.

At the same time, Mia begins to experience strange new feelings, and see differences in her body, that portend something more transformative on the way. For about 75 of the film's 97 minutes, those troubling curiosities Mia is experiencing - a bizarre new craving, unseemly marks on her skin, acute changes in her toes - are delivered on-screen very piecemeal, with no notable progression per se. Which would be fine, cinematically, if not for the fact that in the last 20 minutes those slow and minor changes abruptly launch forward into being nearly complete. What were odd symptoms suddenly become a jarring transformation, and there's no real flow in the narrative from A to B.

Yet the film is capped off by a surprisingly strong ending. The full realization of Mia's transformation, physically and emotionally, results in some heartfelt moments before the tale comes to a rewarding close.

The great flaw here, though, is that the entire rest of the movie - an uneven coming-of-age story followed by abrupt body horror - does not convincingly flow into the ending. As a result, pleasing as the final scene is in and of itself, we're left feeling a little less than satisfied overall.

I don't dislike 'Blue my mind.' The primary young actors are good, there are good ideas, and I enjoy the ending. It's just not entirely successful in telling the story that it wants to.

Worth watching, I think. Just keep your expectations in check.