Turn Me On, Dammit! -- Movie review
Turn Me On, Dammit!
Directed
by Jannicke Systad Jacobsen
Some of the publicity I had seen for this film prior to
viewing it is distorted and misleading.
I am glad for a chance to correct it.
First of all the title of the film is inappropriate. It does not reflect the lead girl's character
or her behavior (Alma). The title seems
to imply that the girl has an exceptionally strong sexual constitution and is
aggressively insistent in pressing her sexual demands on others. But Alma is
nothing of the kind. She is not a
teenage nymphomaniac, as some other blurb I read called her; her hormones are
not out of control; the turmoil in her life is not caused by sex, but by the
ridiculous, hostile culture she is living in, and the fact that her mother is an
idiot who adopts such an antagonistic stance toward her. Alma is quite within normal boundaries and
shows poise and composure in the face of difficult circumstances. The friend I went to the film with expressed
skepticism beforehand whether teenage girls with voracious sexual appetites
even exist. I can assure him and all of
you for a fact that they do. Believe
me. Some unspeakably young girls have
sexual appetites that can stop a freight train.
It is not common, but it is undeniably real. However, Alma is not one of them. These filmmakers don't have a clue about such
girls. Alma is a very ordinary,
unexceptional girl. I think the fact
that she has no father and no father figure available in her life is also a
contributing factor to her inner turmoil, although the film did not even raise
that issue. Not a whole lot goes on in
this film. A boy presses his dick
against her leg at a party and they get a whole movie out of it. That country needs to get a life. This film is not hilarious, as some have
described it; there is nothing funny in it at all. In fact it is rather dull. What comes across most convincing in the film
is the portrayal of the contentious, inhuman culture of the Norwegian small
town. This surprised me, because I have always imagined Norway as this congenial
little country where everybody liked each other and got along well. However, in this film all of the
relationships seem to have very sharp edges. I wonder if that's really true? It becomes understandable why the young girls
hate the town they live in and dream of the day when they can leave. The ending of the film doesn't make sense
either. Alma runs away to Oslo for a few
days and when she comes back everything seems to change for the better. It is not credible. There is no reason for these improvements in
Alma's relationships to take place. The
culture is the same, the circumstances are the same, and Alma is pretty much
the same. Generally this film fails in
what it sets out to do, namely, to portray the sexual awakening and conflict of
a young girl, but it does succeed in presenting an unflattering depiction of
the oppressiveness and conservatism of a small town in Norway. Altogether, this movie is a trifle that
attempts to make a big deal out of nothing.