Susan Granger’s review of “Black Book” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Filmmaker Paul Verhoeven returns to W.W.II in this gripping drama about the Dutch underground in German-occupied Holland in the fall of 1944.
Based on a true wartime incident, it revolves around the plight of a young Jewish woman, Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten), as she attempts to flee the Nazis with her own and other Jewish families. After being hidden by a Christian farm family whose home was bombed, she winds up joining a group of resistance fighters run by Gerben Kuipers (Derek de Lint), who operates a soup kitchen as cover for his sabotage operations. Soon she’s recruited by Dr. Hans Akkermans (Thom Hoffman), demonstrating her bravery and resourcefulness in an encounter on a train with SS officer Ludwig Muntze (Sebastian Koch), who soon becomes her lover.
Taking the Aryan name Ellis and utilizing her sexuality, she infiltrates Gestapo headquarters at The Hague, working with Ronnie (Halina Reijn), in the office of Capt. Gunther Franken (Waldemar Kopus), discovering that there’s been a dastardly plot involving both Nazis and Dutch in faking escape plans for Jewish families who are then robbed and slaughtered.
After a pulpy Hollywood interim, during which he helmed “Basic Instinct,” “Starship Troopers” and “Showgirls,” Paul Verhoeven returns to his native Netherlands, collaborating with writer Gerard Soeteman on this occasionally flawed, coincidence-filled tale of treachery, betrayal, and revenge – with a beginning and end set in Israel.
Because of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” the Dutch acquired a sympathetic reputation but, in fact, they had the worst statistical record of occupied nations for saving their Jewish population. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Black Book” is a vulgar, erotic 7. In Dutch, German, Hebrew and English – with English subtitles, it evokes memories of the Holocaust.
