Friend! How are you! I hope this last month treated you well and that you find yourself happy and healthy today. I have to tell you I am SO EXCITED that I could simultaneously break into a celebratory dance and throw up right now, you see, in a few hours I head to Knotfest Los Angeles 2021 and ERMAHGERD!! AAH!! Fucking Slipknot man, I cannot WAAAAAAAIT!!
*takes a few deep breaths*
Where was I? Right. In order to center myself a little bit since I didn’t know what to do with all the nervous/exciting energy flowing through my head for the entire morning—took the day off from work—I decided to stop by and tell you all about a movie that has been on my mind for a while now. Enter The Columnist (2019) from the Netherlands whose original title is “Kuthoer” which translates from Dutch into English as “Cunt-Whore” but don’t worry too much about the vulgar insult, it only refers to the many words our main character, Femke Boot, gets called online by the trolls of her newspaper column, plus, the term also has to do with the country’s freedom of speech, as in you can say absolutely anything publicly simply because you can, you cunt-whore.
Before I begin listing my favorite things about The Columnist, I believe it is important I tell you I actively use this film as a palate cleanser of sorts every time I watch a bad Horror movie, what do I mean by that? Well, I am not going to name names but oh lord, since there’s a lot of bottom of the barrel type productions out there cashing in on the Horror genre and who don’t give a damn about giving us quality—yet they give lots of damns about investing in online marketing to get those views up and running—I too sometimes fall pray of their sneaky tactics and end up blindsided by their mediocrity, wasting precious hours of my time on their trash… thus my trying to undo the ‘cinematic damage’ by re-watching top quality film-making on my own terms, even if it means investing precious additional hours of my time to remind me that Horror is awesome and this is why I love it.
Without further ado, here’s my top five Yes to YAZ! list of the reasons why I believe The Columnist is such a brilliant film:
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
5. Overwhelmed by online comments: Femke is a writer with a different point of view and she gets eaten alive by those opposing her. What were those specific points of view? We, as the movie audience, never end up knowing but oh surprise, that was the point, one can disagree with stuff but it doesn’t really matter what that stuff is, all that does is that you and I have to treat each other with respect. Okay to disagree? Yes. Okay to attack for disagreeing? No. The attack on Femke was such that it consumed her until she broke because of it, and so then she had no choice but to turn the tables.
4. The Victims: Femke was attacked by several internet trolls, attacked so publicly, so ferociously humiliated by violent words online, just online, nothing but online. Sticks and stones, right? Well, not for Femke. When Femke discovered that her own neighbor was trolling her too she killed him on the spot, as simple as that, and so her revenge had officially started. Femke proceeded to find the home addresses of each of her trolls and went on to killing them in the comfort of their own home, privately, without an audience unlike them fools.
3. Quitting the internet: Killing in the name of freedom of speech became a drug for Femke, but just like with any drug it turned into a real problem and her homicidal addiction almost killed her, well, that and she also missed a very important event with her daughter because of it which caused her to reevaluate her priorities. Internet trolls be damned! Internet be damned! Online life be damned!
2. Relapsing: And just like with any addiction, there was the expected relapse. Femke was doing so well, her book got finally published and on the day of the release party she could not help the craving and used her boyfriend’s smartphone to look at the comments (never read the comments!) and oh shit, there he was, the big-headed troll, the king of them all, now she knew who he was and where he lived and she saw nothing but red. As it turned out, the bad guy was just a random young dude, he was kind of sad, really, a total loser, still living with his parents, stuck in his room playing video games, having no real life, I mean, until Femke met him and *BOOM* no real, real life anymore after that lol.
1. The Book: The best moment in the movie for me was when Femke walked into her book release party wearing all white, covered in the blood of her enemies, with not a care in the world. The struggle had ended and it was great, the book was also done and it was also great. She resembled her book cover, she was her book, she was her story, she was Femke Boot. Hear, hear!
In Love and Fear,
-Marath
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