![]() 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. 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 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. 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. #WW2 BLACK BOOK MOVIE#The movie is worth seeing for her performance alone. We share her emotional struggle and watch her pit her wits against the Gestapo (who are not exactly stupid). 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. 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). Rachel/Ellis is played by Carice van Houten, a leading actress of the Dutch screen. Their humanity is a bridge that brings them closer. Muntze, like Rachel, has had to overcome great losses. 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. ![]() 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. What follows is a frantic game of cat and mouse, espionage and counter-espionage. 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. They are ambushed, and she is almost shot. But chance misfortune means she has to try to make a getaway with some other Jewish people. She was in hiding, waiting for the war to end. She was an accomplished cabaret singer but also Jewish. As her friend leaves, Rachel thinks back to Holland in 1944. One of the passengers recognises a teacher there, Rachel, from times they had shared during the war. A Holy Land Tours bus stops off at a Kibbutz. 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. 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. More than seven decades ago, on December 17, 1944, eleven black American GIs, were butchered in an isolated cow pasture in Wereth, Belgium, by a four-man German patrol of the 1st SS Division. ![]() 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. Director Paul Verhoeven's self-confessed aim is to combine art and business, appeal to a broad audience, and yet still have some endurance. ![]()
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