It is useless to deny that Paul Verhoeven is one of my absolute favorite directors. He has made two (2!) of my ten favorite science fiction movies (Starship Troopers and Total Recall), which for a sci-fi aficionado like me is a very big deal, and he has made my favorite historical movie (Flesh+Blood). Then there is RoboCop, which was promising, but suffered from a budget far too low to realize Verhoeven’s ambitions with it (he should remake it!). I am not a huge fan of Basic Instinct, but I actually rather liked Showgirls and have never understood why people vilify it so.
I am ashamed to admit that I have not seen, hitherto, any of Verhoeven’s Dutch-language movies, but I have long wanted to. I intend to get to Turkish Delight, Soldier of Orange, Spetters and The Fourth Man pretty soon. Meanwhile, however, I have finally, after four years, gotten around to seeing his latest Dutch movie (and, sadly, the only movie he has directed since 2000’s mediocre Hollow Man), Black Book, or Zwartboek. I had heard only good things about it, and have wanted to see it ever since it came out. Now I finally got the DVD.
It is a beautiful production; absolutely world-class. The damaged bomber plane that drops its load of bombs to gain altitude, haphazardly hitting the farm house where Jewess Rachel Stein has been given shelter from the invading Nazis, is shockingly real-looking – because it was a real take; no CGI here!
The movie follows Rachel Stein, a Jewish Dutch national who changes her identity to Ellis de Vries in order to fight the Germans as part of the Dutch resistance movement. She is played with dedication and aplomb by Carice van Houten, who must be any self-respecting director’s dream of a female lead. Some actors carry a movie on their capable shoulders, but the really good ones understand how to support it rather than carry it. The character of Ellis de Vries is an eye-catching foreground to an intense and believable background; neither outshines the other, each gains from one another. This is the precise balance of actor and story that a truly outstanding director knows how to achieve. And the movie even comments on it, sort of. Ellis’ girlfriend, Ronnie (Halina Reijn), becomes the darling of first German and then American soldiers simply by thrusting herself into the foreground so they notice her. One gets the feeling that actress Carice van Houten simply thrust herself into the foreground and so became the darling of this director and this movie. It feels as if it was meant to be, and it is a joy to watch.
Ellis de Vries is part of a resistance cell which is spying on the Germans. Her motivation is that her parents and brother were killed by a high-ranking Nazi officer, Günther Franken, who cooperated with a Dutchman who pretended to help wealthy Jews get away, but really betrayed them to this officer, who would then intercept them, kill them and steal all their valuables. Ellis becomes the mistress of another high-ranking German officer – a nice guy who collects stamps – and manage to plant a listening device in Franken’s office. Unfortunately, there is a spy in the resistance cell, and things just keep going from bad to worse.
The characters feel very real, and the complex interplay of betrayals ensures that this is the kind of movie you need to see more than once in order to pick up all the threads and subtleties. After the first viewing, there is much in it that you yearn to re-experience. The attractive cinematic stylism, which contributes everything to the movie’s impact on the audience, is amazing, especially when you consider that the precise look, colors and moods weren’t in the script, but came straight from the director’s pure creative vision and flair for cinematography.
What the movie achieves, finally, is to make us understand how deeply and personally betrayal affects us. Hating the enemy is one thing, but to have one of your own betray you to the enemy is what ignites the greatest hatred of all, making forgiveness impossible, and enabling us to kill without remorse. Maybe that is why our most bitter and hereditary enemies are always our neighbors. This comes across in this movie on both individual and national levels, adding yet another layer of significance in that the Netherlands share borders with Germany, and were told during the occupation that they are really a part of Germany; after all, it is plain to anyone that they simply speak a dialect of the German language.
Having gone through betrayal and undeserved abuse on an international scale, it is eminently understandable that the Jewish Rachel Stein, although born and bred a Dutchwoman, opts after the war to settle down in Israel, feeling that only here, among people who understand and care about what happened to her, will she be safe and at home. The movie does not place any real blame for the events; it is simply the nature of war, and of human war-time behavior. Heroes are capable of the same cruelties as villains are, which in the chaos of war makes those monikers meaningless. Living in Israel was not a solution to any world problems, but it was a solution to the personal problems of Jews that survived the Holocaust.
It is perhaps a slight shame that Black Book was preceded by another movie of almost the same kind, 2004’s Head in the Clouds, a well-produced, melancholy and quite epic Euro-drama starring Charlize Theron as a French girl who becomes the mistress of a German officer and starts working for the resistance. But where Head in the Clouds feels more like a series of historical snapshots of the 1930s and ‘40s, Black Book is more of a human interest drama, following the fate of its female protagonist more closely, and more intensely because of what she lost. Black Book also has a much more unique and beautiful visual atmosphere, and certainly ends up the superior movie of the two.
My DVD is Region 0 (a UK release, I assume, as it came from Amazon.co.uk), which has (necessarily) English subtitles and interviews with both Paul Verhoeven and Carice van Houten. Unfortunately, it does not have the audio commentary and Making Of featurette that the Region 1 release has. It’s still good, though, and the interviews do add extra depth to the viewing experience.
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Halina Reijn, Waldemar Kobus and others.
Runtime: 145 min
Country: The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium
Film Rating: 
DVD Rating: 
