Black Book is a fast-paced war thriller distinguished by its own ambiguous morality. Paul Verhoeven’s film about Holland and the Dutch resistance eschews the notion of black hats and white, and investigates the shades of grey involved in any tale of survival.
Rachel (Carice von Houten) is a young Jewish singer in Holland hiding from the Nazis near the end of the war. She is warned by a member of the resistance that the Germans are on to her, and she visits her family lawyer to secure the money she needs to escape the country.
The lawyer (Dolf de Vries) has been quietly arranging for his Jewish clients to be smuggled out of Holland and he holds their money until they need it. He gives Rachel the funds she needs. The lawyer carefully enters a notation about each such transaction in his little pocket diary, the black book that gives the film its title.
Rachel is delighted to be reunited with her parents and her brother for the secret crossing into Allied territory. But the Germans find out about the planned escape, and Rachel barely escapes an ambush. She eventually joins the Dutch resistance and begins working against the Nazis from the inside, with a new name and a new identity.
The key players in the story include Thom Hoffman and Derek de Lint as fellow members of the resistance, Sebastian Koch as a high-ranking German officer who is seduced by Rachel, Halina Reijn as a Dutch party-girl type who happily works for the Nazis as a secretary, and Waldemar Kobus as a particularly ruthless German officer. All of the characters are based on real people (or composites of real people), and all of the storylines are based on actual events from WWII.
What’s harrowing about Black Book is a combination of thrilling events and tension-filled atmosphere. The story is framed in doubt. It’s full of wartime narrow escapes and acts of daring, but it’s all played out against the growing suspicion that some of the good guys are traitors. Then again, not all the Nazis are villains.
Black Book, which has won nine major film awards around the globe, is the first movie Paul Verhoeven has made in the Netherlands in 20 years. After making brilliant films such as Turkish Delight and The Fourth Man in Holland, Verhoeven moved to America and, inexplicably, directed such outings as Total Recall, Basic Instinct and Showgirls.
Luckily Black Book, which is in Dutch and German with subtitles, makes up for all that.
(This film is rated PG)
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