The Columnist

Who hasn’t found themselves the victims of online bullying, no matter how slight or how severe? Sometimes it’s easy to brush off, sometimes it’s unhinged lunacy. Lately, Femke Boot (Katja Herbers from TV’s Evil) has been on the receiving end of a targeted harassment campaign from an unknown wealth of emboldened trolls, who are on the severe “unhinged lunacy” end of the spectrum. She’s a newspaper columnist who committed the ultimate sin of being a woman, so every day she receives a seemingly endless stream of tweets and comments calling for her death. But when they find out that she had a 16-year-old boyfriend when she was 19, the campaign ramps up as they call her a “pedophile” and demand that she be fired.

Something snaps in her, one day, when she discovers that one of her trolls is her noisy next-door neighbor. First, she retaliates by destroying the new fence he just created. Possibly out of guilt, or some subconscious understanding that she knows, he offers a half-assed apology in the form of giving her some leftover ham he cooked. She slams the door in his face and throws the ham in the trash. Inside her house, she can still hear and feel his presence, and he undergoes construction on his roof—thumping, booming, banging—she climbs out onto the roof, pushes him off to his death, and then takes one of his fingers as a trophy.

After the murder, she breaks ground on a new book she’s writing, and the words finally come to her. The murder of a wicked internet commenter fills her not with disgust and anxiety, having taken a life, but with you and endless imagination. She’s taken one small step to reclaim her life. Murder becomes an addiction for her. One isn’t enough. She tracks down more of her harassers and stalks them before killing them. Pretty soon, we begin to wonder, “Who’s worse?” She may be a monster, but in the most classical sense—a monster by creation. Her trolls are the Doctor Frankenstein to her creature-esque creation. It's not an easy answer, given how ghastly online culture has been and remains. She even has a Gloria Swanson moment, attending to an adoring audience that thinks her bloody appearance is an artistic statement, while she remains oblivious to her own reality.

The Columnist is a sharp-edged satire whose relevance has only increased over the years. The film was released three years before Musk bought Twitter and re-branded it as X, the so-called “free speech platform.” The internet, this vast superhighway of infinite information, is also the most powerful tool for misinformation ever to exist. Femke Boot is a representation of all writers who suffer at the hands of anonymous commenters who spew venom behind the safety of a keyboard. Her boyfriend, Steven, even offers her sage advice she struggles in vain to follow: “Never read the comments.”

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
The Columnist goes to print on Blu-ray in a single-disc release housed in a standard case. Cover artwork dates back to its original release, with Femke covered in blood, holding a pair of gardening shears used as a murder weapon, with newspaper print behind her. Inside the case is a 16-page booklet with an essay from Shelagh Rowan-Legg.

The Columnist is presented in 1080p high definition. It was shot digitally by cinematographer Martijn Cousijn, giving the film a sleek, clean look. Interiors, particularly Femke’s home, are sparsely furnished, with mostly white walls - even Femke mostly wears white - giving the production a sort of Nancy Meyers vibe. Juxtaposed with the violent goings-on of the story, the red of the blood is even more exaggerated against the neutral color tones. The film is sharply detailed, with excellent contrast in its nighttime sequences and warm lighting haloing the actors’ faces.

There are two audio options available for viewers: A 2.0 LPCM stereo mix and a 5.1 surround mix, encoded in Dolby TrueHD. There’s not a tremendous difference between the two, because the surround mix is very front-heavy on the soundstage, although it is certainly wider in realization. The front-heavy design of the mix benefits it, as rear effects are placed more thoughtfully and have a greater impact, such as the sequence in which Femke is inside her house as her neighbor pounds on the roof. If you’ve ever had an upstairs neighbor, the sound design of The Columnist replicates it very faithfully, with echoes ringing out through the rear soundstage and the subwoofer pulsating rhythmically.

Beyond the included 16-page booklet inside the Blu-ray case, the only other special feature contained on the disc itself is an introduction to the film by film programmer and author, Grady Hendrix.

• Introduction (HD 14:51) - Grady Hendrix

Director Ivo van Aart tackles a frustrating subject and instead of simply wagging his finger at a culture that allows violent, hateful rhetoric to flow unchecked, he uses it as an opportunity to look at the monsters it can create. While “never read the comments” is sound advice, there are bullying campaigns that can’t simply be ignored, particularly when they’re directed to someone’s employer, calling for them to get fired. The Columnist is a wonderful, brutal satire, and Film Movement’s release sees terrific A/V stats, even if it’s lacking in special features. The Columnist is Highly Recommended.