Niels Bourgonje | Turn It Around / 2017

something he forgot to tell

by Douglas Messerli

 

Paul Bontenbal (screenwriter), Niels Bourgonje (director) Turn It Around / 2017 [9 minutes]

 

The Dutch short Turn It Around, directed by Niels Bourgonje, is a sweet short film that features yet another instance in what I described as a genre of gay short films in which teens at a party spend hours playing spin-the-bottle or “Truth or Dare.” This film’s title appears to be a sort of reference to that game, which often ends in a kiss that reveals a lover’s unspoken desire for another.

      In this case the young gay boys are Bram (Valentijn Avé) who lives in the small town which Florian (Tonko Bossen) from Amsterdam is visiting to attend a festival with his cousin Hugo (Timo Dries).

      Bram is a charming, good-looking 15-year-old who is clearly popular among the other party-goers, his friends immediately pointing out the girls they think are prettiest to him when he arrives, presumably knowing that females also think he’s cute.     

     But on this evening Bram, inexplicably perhaps even to himself, only has eyes for Florian, just as the stranger clearly discovers he has an interest for the newcomer. The two keep attempting to get together, at one point sitting on the couch as they slowly move their knees closer, their hands nervously clutching their thighs with the hope that they might brush. Someone at the party crying out “Damn faggot,” with no relationship to their near-invisible interactions, ends that maneuver.

      Later Florian retreats to the garden, Bram following, but even as they attempt to make small talk, Florian trying to Bram closer by showing him the events of the Festival on his cellphone, they ultimately are too frighted to move in for the kiss they obviously both so deeply desire.

     And later at the game of spin-the-bottle, in what seems like hours of playing, everyone seems to get the opportunity to kiss one another, none of them particularly interested in doing so. But the boys somehow lose out. When Hugo finally reports it’s time for him and his cousin to leave, Bram grabs the bottle from someone else, insisting that he is owed a last spin.

       The green beer bottle spins very slowly around and around as we breathlessly wait for what has be inevitable. Yet, it isn’t. It points the girl Hugo has described as the most beautiful at the party. But this time Bram stands, ignoring the girl who sits waiting and moving over to Florian instead, both of them now standing, as he plants a long kiss on the boy’s lips.

      Everyone at the party looks aghast. And there is utter silence as they don’t know how to respond. Bram simply turns to them, smiles, and says, “Oh and there’s something I forget to tell you.”

     If there was ever a more inclusive “coming out” scene, performed without any of the usual dilemmas, fear, and doubt, I can’t imagine it. Bram seems to be the most reasonable young man in the room, finally having been able to take things in hand and “turn it around” to how he wants the evening to end without absolutely any regret or sense of social disdain.

     I am sure this young fifteen-year-old will soon be discussing with his parents a trip to Amsterdam.

 

Los Angeles, May 5, 2022

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (May 2022).