It is always difficult for a teenager to deal with the feeling of being ‘weird’. Lisa Brühlmann’s “Blue My Mind” is a coming of age that deals with pertinent issues of adolescence in a fablelike register, acquiring a form that is both beautiful and grotesque. Mia (interpreted by Luna Wedler) is a teenager who enters a new class in the middle of the school year, and soon struggles to integrate herself into a group of people she identifies herself with. She feels fascinated by their boldness, their style, the way they despise the rest of the class and impose their presence with a fearless dominance, not allowing anyone (not even their parents) to interfere in their freedom. Giana (Zoë Pastelle Holthuizen) is the ‘leader’ of the female group, who Mia will become closer to, and that will decisively influence her life perspective during this period.

At the same time, many changes occur in Mia’s life, not only motivated by herself, such as the need to change her appearance and her behavior to impress her new friends, but also arising as natural phenomena of puberty, such as the first menstruation and the gradual discovery of sexual desire. However, Mia will not face these transformations like other teenage girls. During this troubled period of transition, there will be another transformation in her body that she is incapable of understanding and does not reveal to anyone, thus increasing the feeling of strangeness towards herself. Her body revealing a different metamorphosis from the other girls of her age is perhaps a metaphor for the weirdness that adolescents sometimes feel about themselves, that they try to get around by often using phantasy. And that’s what happens in the story of Blue My Mind.

Brühlmann follows Mia’s path in this complicated transition phase, focusing on her inner conflict in a progressive abstraction of reality. Gradually, the fable will embrace reality as Mia manifests her innermost desires, from the loss of her virginity to the need to expose herself to extreme experiences, such as the abusive consumption of alcohol, drugs, or the adrenaline of stealing in stores. The eagerness to experience even more extreme, even self-destructive experiences, arises as a mark of Mia’s violent metamorphosis. As an effect, she starts to question her own existence, her desires, her aspirations, diving in a deep existential reflection that seems to enclose a kafkian dimension. Thus, “Blue My Mind” proposes a unique approach to the young feminine universe, approaching surrealism and phantasy without ever putting aside crucial questions of the reality of adolescence.

By Tiago Vieira da Silva | Translated by Isaura Arantes

On Leuk Jornal | Edition 2 | 20 - 21 JUN 2018