Black Book

Zwartboek; war drama, The Netherlands / UK / Germany / Belgium / USA, 2006; D: Paul Verhoeven, S: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Derek de Lint, Halina Reijn

In '56, Dutch woman Ronnie recognizes her old friend Rachel Stein in a kibbutz near the lake of Galilee. Rachel then remembers her traumatic past during the last few months of World War II: as a Jewish woman, she was hiding in the Netherlands. When the Nazis discover her whereabouts, she trusts a police officer, Van Gein, and boards a boat with the other Jews who were promised to get transported to safety. The Nazis kill them in a trap, but Rachel survives, finds a new name, Ellis, and joins the resistance members led by Gerben. By seducing the local SS Commander Muntze, she mingles in the elite circles and places a microphone in the Nazi headquarters. But she really falls in love with him. The Nazi officer Franken double-crosses the resistance, shoots many of them in a trap and blames Ellis for everything, labeling her as a traitor. After the end of war, Muntze and Franken get killed, Ellis is accused of being a traitor, but manages to find the real traitor, Hans, and kill him with Gerben. Back in the kibbutz in '56, Rachel witnesses another Arab-Israeli war starting.

Director Paul Verhoeven returned back to his homeland in big style after his career in the US and delivered his best Dutch film, excellent "Black Book", which was even voted as the best Dutch film up until that date by a local poll in 2 0 0 8. Just like most of his movies, it is a raw, restless, extremely energetic World War II film that doesn't avoid some of the cliches of the genre, but still manages to amend many of them and present them as something new and creative. "Black Book" is also slightly heavy handed, but its chaos is actually quite meaningful and builds a hidden theme inside throughout, especially towards the ever increasing power of bitterness in the finale. The main theme is that people are evil or always take the easier wrong route of violence and aggression than to actually do the right thing, which is why the good individuals, like the main heroine Ellis, have to suffer. 

After her family was killed by the Nazis, Ellis decides to become a spy of the resistance and go all the way (she dyes her pubic hair blond; sleeps with SS Commander Muntze), but gets double-crossed and the Nazis make her partners believe she actually betrayed them. The label of a traitor gets perversely imposed on her and she has to take the punishment she doesn't deserve (i.e. the angry Dutch pour feces over her). Some of the "heroine gets saved in the nick of time" gimmicks are far fetched, but Verhoeven's passionate take on the subject are so gripping they will make the viewers accept them, whereas the leading actress Carice van Houten is excellent. In one moment, he did reach perfection: in the final scene of the film, that says absolutely everything about some ever lasting cycles of hate and violence in life, and persecution of Jews or any kind of a nation in general, while the tragic good individuals just try to live their normal lives, side by side with disasters.

Grade:+++