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Film Review: "Turn Me On, Dammit!"

Raunak Khosla |
June 24, 2012 | 12:24 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

 

Helene Bergsholm as Alma in Turn Me On, Dammit!
Helene Bergsholm as Alma in Turn Me On, Dammit!
A film that paints social reality in a completely new color, delivering an innocent story with a line of morals trailing closely behind, Turn Me On, Dammit! is definitely a must-see.

Such a philosophy is echoed in all aspects of its production, that all the societal nonsense pushed on us – and, in this case, on our bodies – should just be ignored if we intend to grow as individuals.

The film is based on a novel by Olaug Nilssen, centred on a 15 year old girl, Alma (Helene Bergsholm), who is discovering her newfound sexuality, just like the average 15 year old boy. Because she is a girl, however, she keeps her horniness and imagination to ‘acceptable’ levels. But her problems start when her crush, Artur, randomly pokes her with his dick one evening, and everything falls apart one by one. Nobody believes her, labels her as ‘sick’ and an outcast, and her perception of reality and fantasy is eventually screwed. The film direction makes sure that the viewer also experiences such a delusion, with tactics that include vague separations of scenes, stills as if they were portraying real events, and narration that helps to get inside Alma’s mind. 

The writer-director is documentarian Jannicke Systed Jacobsen, who, with Bergsholm, is also making her feature-film debut, so you can count on Turn Me On, Dammit! to be pretty down to earth and convincing. The story as a whole is feel-good and quirky. Graphic portrayals of penises, phone sex, and masturbation abound. However, it is never too in-your-face, so if you want to take it lightly, you can. And all the curious, dead-pan Nordic humour keeps you glued till the end.

In terms of the meat, the film deals with all the sensitive issues with careful mastery. The deeper you look, the more you are able to find something refreshingly original. For example, within the theme of gender discrimination, it is shown that it is not generally the girl who is weak. If society only encouraged guys to stand up for themselves, girls would not have to be used as scapegoats, and could be given equal standards. The film is full of metaphors and references, sometimes obvious, sometimes even shallow, sometimes hidden. Alma and her friends naively dream of leaving their little town of Skoddeheimen, for places like Oslo (and even Texas!), thinking that they’ll be able to leave all their problems behind. The presence of contrasting elements in the final scenes highlights how much the central character has grown, in proportion to the people around her, who have been forced to do some growing up as well.

As with the central theme, the film places the individual in the midst of larger, more common issues like teen bullying and alienation within the family, and even far-flung ones like activism. In this sense, its universal appeal is emboldened in a way few recent international films can account for.

Reach reporter Raunak Khosla here.


 

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