Was political reporter Jaïr Ferwerda there just too late or exactly on time? I can’t quite figure it out. Thursday appeared on Videoland his two-part series Caroline, about the politician who hasn’t been around for very long, but everyone knows her by her first name. Caroline van der Plas, founder of the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB). The party that caused a sensation in the elections for the Provincial Council in March 2023. BBB became the largest everywhere.
Ferwerda’s series starts less than six months after those elections. Summer 2023. Caroline’s star status already seems to have subsided somewhat. We see her foraging in her terraced house in Deventer. A few weeks later, her living room will be where the BBB will plan its biggest election stunt. Now everything is peace and quiet. Caroline unpacks her suitcase, she has been on holiday in “the Eastern Bloc” and she has brought Mozartkugeln for her mother. She brings them over, and the camera. Notice how she can walk right into her mother’s house through the open back door. The coffee is being made, Caroline is probably eating a chocolate ball herself. We hear Caroline about her mother – “my support and support”. Her mother about her: “She works not to feel sad.” Caroline’s husband Jan died in 2019. He is not the father of her two bearded sons Ryan and Andrew – she divorced him when the children were young.
That was the personal part, on to the politics. The government has fallen, new elections are coming in November. The big trump card has been found in the person of Mona Keijzer. The former CDA member is BBB’s prime ministerial candidate and in great secrecy, at Caroline’s home with the curtains closed, a press moment is being prepared to present Mona, plus three newcomers who also come from other parties. Jaïr Ferwerda’s camera is always there – and that produces nice details. Mona taking the stairs, Caroline the elevator. Mona who carefully stays away from Caroline’s cigarette smoke. Caroline’s coat sewn from BBB flags versus Mona’s pico bello suit.
It is entertaining, the series, but also flat as a dime. A confirmation of what you actually already knew. Caroline’s ‘ordinariness’ was her greatest attraction. She is, as she says herself, “a middle-aged, overweight, smoking woman”, and that was the end of the news during the late summer election season. She had been in every television program before, we already knew her mother, her sons and We had even seen her nail stylist and taste in clothing before.
Reflecting on riots
This is not a documentary about a rising star, but a look back at the campaign period of an anti-heroine who now knows the tricks of the trade. One that leaves nothing to chance, especially not with a rolling camera in its wake.
Ferwerda gives her ample opportunity to reflect on riots and correct incidents in one-on-one interviews. The debacle at the General Deliberations, where she submitted a motion to increase the minimum wage without knowing how much money. She was laughed at for it by the cabinet and parliament. She confesses to Ferwerda that she lay in bed crying that evening. Not because of her defeat in Parliament, but because she was mocked on the day after the anniversary of her husband’s death.
She responds to the sick prank that Johan Derksen delivered to her on TV. She blames the author of the biography for her serious accusations. Why did her divorce battle from years ago have to be stirred up so much? The stress that the biography caused, it is assumed, weakened her at election time. She had hoped for at least ten seats, but it turned out to be seven. Just not nice, just like the documentary.
This is the last Zap from Rinskje Koelewijn. She moves to the Life editorial team.