Black Book

I already knew Paul Verhoeven is not the greatest of directors, but was still curious about this 'most expensive Dutch movie ever'. The film disappoints from the first moment on. One doesn't have the feeling to be back in the 1940's: unlike Schindler's List, Blackbook lacks the right atmosphere and tension. Although the actors wear the right clothes, I felt like watching 2006 scenes - not war scenes. Even if there is serious action, like shootouts, bombardments or German soldiers attacking, there is a stunning lack of tension. Maybe the camera work has to do with it: amateurish and with a strong low budget feeling. Verhoeven was either to lazy or is just too incompetent to think about how to film a scene in a proper way. The style of camera work is cheap, outdated and boring. Photography is clumsy and uninteresting. To be honest, it was difficult to watch this film to the end. I feel ashamed to be Dutch, since there are people that call Paul Verhoeven the greatest of Dutch directors. And I'm afraid they are actually right...

Director Paul Verhoeven's self-confessed aim is to combine art and business, appeal to a broad audience, and yet still have some endurance. The fame of films like Basic Instinct and Total Recall is lasting, yet they court criticism with their use of sexuality or by playing to the (easily dismissible) sci-fi genre. Graphic sex and violence are common in his movies and, when you add the occasional major flop such as Showgirls, the work of Verhoeven often fails to be taken seriously. Yet Black Book deserves respect. It is a wartime resistance movie on an epic scale, freed of the conventions of British and American war movies, yet bringing their typically high production values to a uniquely Dutch film. Israel 1956. A Holy Land Tours bus stops off at a Kibbutz. One of the passengers recognises a teacher there, Rachel, from times they had shared during the war. As her friend leaves, Rachel thinks back to Holland in 1944. She was an accomplished cabaret singer but also Jewish. She was in hiding, waiting for the war to end. But chance misfortune means she has to try to make a getaway with some other Jewish people. They are ambushed, and she is almost shot. A little later she starts working for the resistance ('terrorists' as the Nazis call them) and infiltrates the Gestapo, seducing a high ranking officer called Muntze. What follows is a frantic game of cat and mouse, espionage and counter-espionage. Rachel (now called Ellis) is torn between the horrors inflicted on her friends close-by and the elaborate deceits she tries to play to save them. Gradually it becomes clear that Muntze, anticipating the end of the war, is risking his neck to try to minimize death and suffering on both sides, and one or more of the resistance fighters is selling out to the Nazis to reap rich profits. Muntze, like Rachel, has had to overcome great losses. Their humanity is a bridge that brings them closer. Rachel/Ellis is played by Carice van Houten, a leading actress of the Dutch screen. Her presence is luminous and charismatic (for British/American audiences, there is the curious sensation of watching someone unknown who radiates star quality with every breath). Her character has to adapt to many contrasting situations yet there is an underlying determination and fast thinking that shines through and makes such changes seem in character and unscripted. We share her emotional struggle and watch her pit her wits against the Gestapo (who are not exactly stupid). The movie is worth seeing for her performance alone. On the one hand, the film has been minutely researched, based on actual events and characters; on the other it still has the slightly larger than life gloss we might associate, say, with a James Bond film. The escapes are in the nick of time, the sex scenes are steamy, and the plot twists increase exponentially as we get closer to the end. Not content to portray the unique conditions of Holland during the occupation, Black Book goes on to catalogue post war atrocities and Rachel's eventual journey to Israel. The style and delivery will not appeal to everyone, but Black Book is Verhoeven on top form, delivering grand entertainment that shows his talents (and those of the remarkable Carice van Houten) at their finest.

Leave it to Paul "Subtle as a sledgehammer on the head" Verhoeven to come up with a WW2 film that is very cheesy and insulting at the same time. After being basically cast out of Hollywood after making a string of several awful movies, Verhoeven said he returned to his "roots" when he decided to shoot this film. Well, BLACK BOOK is even cheesier than any of his Hollywood films. The whole thing is like a standard murder thriller set against the German occupation of Holland. An entire Jewish family is slaughtered while trying to escape the country. Only a young plucky woman, who's already part of the resistance, escapes from the massacre and decides to infiltrate the German occupation and seek those who murdered her family. There isn't a cliché in the book, black or not, that's not used here to tell this overly elaborate and often unintentionally funny spy tale. What's so bad about it? The convoluted murder/mystery/spy story that's propelled forward not because there's anything remotely interesting or compelling about it but because the script demands it? The monotonous tone of the film or the main actress who's as expressive as Robocop? The truly unintentionally funny moments that belie the serious intentions of the director? The typically gratuitous Verhoeven touches regarding violence and nudity? The TV-movie feel of the whole project? The complete implausibilities of the story that wouldn't even cut it in a 1930s serial? Stand-out scenes like when they try to chloroform a man who suddenly starts pummeling the clumsy members of the resistance, Verhoeven reveling in every kick and punches the bad guy was inflicting on the poor saps, made me laugh out loud. This overdone scene totally derailed the movie. But things only got worse after that. And worse, and worse. The symbolic ending with the hearse and coffin made my eyes roll. This brings me to another point about every Paul Verhoeven film: there's always an unsettling amount of gratuitous violence in them, and BLACK BOOK is no exception. You can't make a serious film about WW2 if you revel in violence. Almost the entire cast of BLACK BOOK is eviscerated in one gory fashion or another. This is not shocking to me, since this is from the same director of TOTAL RECALL (or TOTAL WRECK-ALL) but I've honestly given up on Paul Verhoeven. He could have easily redeemed himself here with this film and yet it only reinforces the dire qualities of his previous stink bombs, like SHOWGIRLS, that Verhoeven is only interested in the crude and sensational, nothing about the human experience or even the craft of film-making.

This is definitely one of the best films ever made in Holland. Paul Verhoeven has created a real masterpiece. In my opinion, even if you dislike WW2 movies, you really should see Zwartboek, this movie is about so much more than just the war. A very philosofical sentence in the movie is 'Does is never ends?'. Men could say it illustrates the writer's longing for worldwide peace, also regarding the end of the movie which illustrates the Middle East conflict. Carice van Houten and Sebastian Koch are simply great in this movie. Without them Paul Verhoeven couldn't have done this with such a magnitude. I'm sure that we will hear more from this two actors in the future, maybe in a Hollywood production? They really deserve it.

I seem to be the first in the US to comment on this film after having seen it at a regular theater. There's no sense in talking about the movie's plot as so many others have already done so. My fiancée is German and tends to be interested in those artsy foreign films. Tonight she decided we should go see this one. I'm glad we did. I've seen a number of Paul Verhoeven's films and have found some of them quite entertaining, if a bit tacky and unrealistic. I wasn't expecting much from a Dutch film by a guy known for making big budget, tacky films. I was pleasantly surprised by this film. Yes, it most certainly IS a Paul Verhoeven film. Gratuitous nudity and violence seem to be his hallmarks and they're certainly not lacking. Do they detract from the movie? A little, but not enough to lose sight of the message of the film - or to make it any less enjoyable. We had recently seen "The Lives of Others" which starred Sebastian Koch. It made his character oddly familiar. I'm certainly a fan of his after seeing his performance in both of these movies. As for Carice van Houten... well, one of the marks of a true STAR is that you just can't take your eyes off of him or her. It isn't just beauty; there are plenty of beautiful women in the world who don't possess that same star quality. It isn't just talent, either; there are many very talented actresses out there who just don't draw you in in the same way. Carice van Houten has it all: she's beautiful in a very real way and an amazing talent - and has that something special that makes you look at her every second she's on screen. I hope the directors of the world take note of her because she deserves the stardom she has exhibited in this film. It is good to see a film that depicts how the hunted can easily turn into the hunter. My fiancée's mother was a young girl during WWII who's family lived in Poland (near Gdansk aka Danzig). Towards the end of the war, they were forced to leave their home in fear for their lives - both from the advancing Russians and the local Poles exacting revenge for what other Germans had done. The film said it in a slightly different sentence, but it is right in bringing across the message that people seem to never learn: that it is NEVER right to hurt others no matter what they might have done in the past. I wonder if Paul Verhoeven's family is Jewish because he really seems to identify with the never ending succession of attacks against the Jewish people. It saddens me that only ONE other review even mentioned the scene at the end where Rachel's community (in Israel) was being attacked. Part of the film's message is that we seemed doomed to repeat our inhumanity to our fellow man. Was this a perfect movie? Certainly not. Is it a masterpiece ala "Schindler's List" or "Full Metal Jacket" or "Saving Private Ryan?" Probably not. But I'll say that in the several hours since I've seen it, I can't stop thinking about it. And I certainly enjoyed every minute of that 2-1/2 hour film while watching it. I'd watch it again if I had it on DVD.

When I read all the comments about Zwartboek, it becomes clear to me that either you like the movie or you kind of hate it. What is that with good and bad that we want to make an exact line... This whole movie is about not knowing if you can do bad things (kill, betray or whatever) to achieve the good. Or the other way around off course. I must admit that the movie is (again) explicit, but aren't all the Dutch movies? What strikes me most is that some people expect to get a movie in which everything is clear. I think this is a movie which should set us to thinking: what would I do if I were in the same situation. Paul Verhoeven made clear with this movie that in the end, lots of people act for their own prosperity. It's just what you make people around you believe... I think in lots of countries people acted like this, none of the countries however dared to make a movie out of it. To me this movie is again (as Soldaat van Oranje and for instance De Tweeling)a beautiful one about WWII without getting boring. A smart story with two faces. Although some of the actors don't really fit into a masterpiece like this, I give it a great compliment. Get over the explicit name calling (ever seen Pulp Fiction??) and appreciate the scenery and nice camera-work, the great plot change and you'll have a great time and may even reconsider your own ideas about the resistance!

A cartoon-strip conflation of half a dozen true stories, Black Book is Showgirls meets James Bond with a bucket of faeces thrown in for good measure. As it was bound to be: although ageing director Paul Verhoeven did, once upon a time, have something to say, and something to contribute to world cinema, nowadays he's not so much the fiction as the pulp itself. Crying out for Nestle sponsorship in its testament to the life-saving power of chocolate, Black Book is wartime and post-wartime Netherlands as it never was and Mata Hari as even she could never have been. That it's brain-dead comes as no surprise given Verhoeven's provenance, though it is surprising that the Netherlands itself seemed so proud of this risible junk it tried to nominate it as a Best Film. Best of what? Exploitation? Well, yup. Crassness? Definitely a winner there. Utter unreality? Ten out of ten. Immaturity? In a field of its own. Best Netherlands Musical? Very probably: the set-piece of a gallery of screaming crones tipping down a bucket of ordure is like a deranged out-take of a Verhoeven trial-run at Les Miserables. Though it's sad that something as dire as this should get such high ratings here, IMDb reflects mass audience dumbing down; it doesn't cause it. So those who think it's more masterpiece than masturbatory are entitled to their view and Verhoeven is free to proceed with yet more and bigger buckets of shite to draw in the punters. Hopefully, actress Carice van Houten won't have anything to do with it. No brighter international star can surely have been born in such dismal circumstances: the lady has a talent and a screen presence that having survived Verhoeven will survive anything. Rating: 1 out of 10 thanks to van Houten's performance. Without it, Black Book merits minus 9. Recommendation: "The Night Porter". It's a movie. That alone distinguishes it from Verhoeven's work.

This a Total Recall kind of plot twisting thriller set against the background of ww2. The two and a half hour lasting movie doesn't contain any dull moment. The acting is top notch, like all technical parts of the movie. I would have loved the movie even more if it had had an open ending so we would never know who was good or wrong (The main theme of the film) , but it is still entertaining as hell and most people probably like it better if everything is clear for them. So this is a great homecoming of Paul Verhoeven and I think it will be a big hit in Holland and internationally. certainly one of the best ww2 thrillers ever made.

I saw this film last night at the Toronto International Film Festival and enjoyed it quite a bit. I wouldn't describe it as excellent, but it's definitely entertaining, and my interest never waned despite the nearly 2.5 hour length. The film concerns one young Jewish woman's attempt to stay alive during WWII by any means necessary. Through a series of allegiances which shift with dizzying speed, she does whatever she has to do to survive. Without giving away any plot details, I'll briefly describe my impressions of the film. The lead actress was great - not only is she stunningly beautiful, but she completely made the movie for me. She's very easy on the eyes, and proves to be a remarkable actress, completely believable and sympathetic. The plot moved along swiftly and never lost momentum, although the ever-shifting loyalties and allegiances became overwhelming after a while. Having said that however, the plot did seem a bit predictable and obvious to me, a sort of paint-by-numbers approach to script writing. I didn't find it very suspenseful, although our heroine is such a sympathetic character that I found myself rooting for her throughout, wondering how she'd make it through (since the film is one long flashback, one already knows she'll make it). For a European film it was surprisingly Hollywoodesque, with lots of gratuitous violence and nudity - although I didn't mind the nudity. There were a few scenes which seemed particularly gratuitous and unnecessary: two words - "shit bucket". But luckily these didn't distract too much from the plot. All in all it was an above average movie and well worth seeing if you're a fan of WWII films and don't mind watching a beautiful young woman light up the screen for two hours or so.

Dutch director Paul Verhoeven left the Netherlands some 25 odd years ago because him and his movies were perceived as 'perverse' and 'dirty'. At least that's what his reasons were according to his '95 Razzie-acceptance speech, the award he was given for Showgirls. As far as Zwartboek goes, I think he should have stayed in the States, concentrating on what he does best: Verhoeven-style SF like Robocop, Total Recall and most notably -in my opinion- Starship Troopers, for awarding this movie with an average of '8' at the IMDb-votes is a flat-out insult for other movie(maker)s. Zwartboek claims to be a -somewhat politically incorrect- World War II story about a Jewish girl whose hiding address gets bombed, joins the Dutch resistance, stoops a few German officers to spy at the Nazi HQ in Amsterdam and saves the f-ing day. A fictional story, but Verhoeven nonetheless makes it seem this is what Holland looks like in 1944, post D-day. A country where a Jewish girl can apparently walk about town as if no war was going on and no Jews were (still) being deported to Nazi death camps. Where a Jewish girl can show her (beautiful) legs when passing German Soldiers. Where a Jewish girl can walk into a notary's office, show a picture of her rich parents and walk out with some 50.000 guilders 'spendingmoney'(roughly equals 30.000 US dollars or 200 grand in 2006-currency). Where a Jewish girl not only can infiltrate a Nazi Headquarters, but also sleep with a high SD Officer, sing at Hitler's birthday party and have access to all kinds of information regarding her imprisoned and soon to be executed resistance buddies. Likely? Not very. Zwartboek won several 'Golden Calfs' (Dutch Oscars) at the Dutch Film Festival in Utrecht, including 'Best Picture' and 'Best actress in a leading role' (Awards that should have gone to Warmerdam's "Ober", by the way). Carice van Houten plays her part wonderfully, no comment there, just not very convincing. That lies in the plot however, not in her acting (with a bit of luck she might be landing an important role in a major motion picture in Hollywood some time in the near future). It's just that she does not stop smiling and singing in this movie. Consider a Jewish girl whose cover has been blown, whose parents and brother are subsequently killed, whose newfound buddies are in extreme peril (being captured by German soldiers and all..), that sleeps with a SD officer, sings and dances with the Nazi pig (as he is portrayed) that killed her family and is betrayed by those same newfound buddies. And then picture a beautiful young girl that does not stop smiling.. Verhoeven's (partly self-written) picture, however fictional, tries to create a factual image of almost postwar (excusez Le badly chosen mot) of late '44 Holland in an Jewish-heroin-war story, but ends up as a highly unnecessary sensational popcorn-epic that misses every convincing aspect. I shall not go into detail, but about every 4 minutes of this 145 minute feature contains very unlikely events, effectively ruining the conscious movie-goers viewing pleasure. An insult to the WWII movie archives.