It's difficult to imagine the same Paul Verhoeven who directed such overblown and garish Hollywood monstrosities as ‘Showgirls’, ‘Starship Troopers’ and ‘Basic Instinct’ could also be responsible for writing and directing such an adult (in the good sense of the word), complex, thought-provoking thriller.
BLACK BOOK will force you to the edge of your seat, keep you perched there for the story’s entire two and a half hour running time, and leave you shocked, surprised, frightened, horrified and breathless. Verhoeven has created a tale which is so incredible that you'll need to keep reminding yourself while watching it that it's based on actual events which happened a little more than sixty years ago.
BLACK BOOK is set in Occupied Holland in September 1944. The Nazis are still firmly in control of the country. The Allies are advancing across Europe towards Germany but they’ve just suffered a major setback at Arnhem. Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten) is a beautiful young Jewish woman living in hiding in the attic of a farmer’s house. When we first encounter her she is trying to memorize a section of the Bible in order that she can pass more convincingly as a Christian. “If the Jews had listened to Jesus they wouldn’t be in such a mess now” she’s told by the farmer sheltering her. Her already precarious existence is further threatened when a crippled US bomber struggling to gain height accidentally drops a bomb on the farmhouse.Now she’s homeless, without an ID card and at continual risk of arrest and deportation, or arbitrary execution. But for Rachel the horror is only just beginning. Her efforts to stay alive lead her to a group of Dutch Resistance fighters and a hair-raisingly dangerous plan to rescue three of their captured comrades by having her seduce the local Gestapo chief.
To reveal anymore of the plot would be a severe disservice. Suffice to say that BLACK BOOK continually confounds expectations as its almost surreal tale of wartime betrayal, deceit and disguise unfolds.From the traitor in the midst of the Dutch Resistance to the Gestapo chief protecting his Jewish lover, and the elderly lawyer with a client list of rich Jews desperate for an escape route; everyone has an identity to conceal or a secret to keep. No one is who they appear to be. To trust someone is to sign your own death warrant.
This crushing sense of paranoia and insecurity is heightened by Anne Dudley’s magnificent music score. Restless, insistent and unsettled violins urge the story, characters, and viewer continually forward in a hopeless search for some sort of resolution and peace. The one element lacking from the film is a genuine sense of period atmosphere. For me the story would have felt more authentic if it had been shot in black and white. World War Two was a black and white conflict. Everything we see on screen is correct for the period but it just doesn’t feel like 1944. The colour is too sharp and too clean. There are techniques available to make new colour film look old (David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac’ makes great use of this) but perhaps Verhoeven’s limited budget couldn’t stretch to it.
The director’s return to his native Holland to work in his own language has brought out a side of him fans of his Hollywood movies would never have expected. BLACK BOOK is an R rated movie but there’s nothing gratuitous about the violence, nudity, or bad language. They all play an integral role in the telling of a story which is adult for all the right reasons.
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