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When you go to the satirical program Plakshot by Roel Maalderink, it is difficult to take the rest of the TV evening seriously. The informant who ‘accidentally’ lets a press photographer photograph the papers in his hand? Hahaha, no one falls for that anymore, right? Intended coalition members who strive for the “strictest admission regime for asylum ever” while they know that the harshness of the policy has no influence on the number of asylum applications? Hahaha, politicians are only that cynical in TV series.
In the new series of Plakshot (NPO3) contains traditional sketches about, for example, news avoiders and plastic surgery for babies. But Maalderink’s forte remains the street interview. In this he makes fun of vox pop, the strange habit of journalists to ask random people on the street for their opinion on world problems. In one series he only has to say “Ajax bad?” to ask passers-by to talk. In another he processes vox pops about the Eurovision Song Contest on the spot into meaningless graphs.
In the strongest item, Maalderink not only criticizes television conventions but also a real abuse: How politicians and journalists got excited in advance about possible disturbances at Remembrance Day that ultimately did not take place. So, the day after the ceremony, he asks passers-by on Dam Square: “Isn’t it hypothetically a shame what could have happened here that didn’t happen but could have happened, which would have been very bad if it had happened?” The answer no longer matters. People like to chime in.
HIV researcher
The Buddhist forest monk Bhante is also said to be a type Plakshot can be. For the documentary The Monk the Danish duo Mira Jargil and Christian Sønderby Jepsen visit him in the mountains of Sri Lanka. In a previous life the monk was the successful doctor and HIV researcher Jan Erik Hansen. But he left everything to strive for the state of nibbana in the East – the end of suffering.
The two-part documentary will be broadcast in the section The Buddhist View, intended for the Buddhist community in the Netherlands. But I doubt that this is served by this film. It paints a caricatured picture of Buddhism. Bhante is the textbook example of the spoiled Westerner who bends the teaching to his will, usually as a form of self-therapy. For example, which branch of Buddhism he adheres to remains unclear. He is busy with his YouTube channel. For someone who strives for selflessness, he is quite self-absorbed.
Bhante is very agitated for a monk. The common thread throughout the first episode is that Bhante keeps interfering with the documentary. Just let it go. He is annoyed that Jargil and Jepsen want to know more about his past. How did he come to become a forest monk? Bhante only wants to talk about the here and now. “Personality is an illusion.”
He does not want to answer difficult questions about his son, whom he abandoned. The collaboration with the documentary makers is failing. They throw their recordings in a drawer. But four years later they pick up the camera again when Bhante suddenly dies. Now they can still make the documentary about his past, exactly what he didn’t want. But yes, Bhante’s soul has now moved to an eastern tent caterpillar or something, so he can no longer protest.
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