Black Book

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Black Book (Zwartboek)


Lee Marshall in Venice
Screendaily


Dir: Paul Verhoeven. Neth-Bel-Ger-UK. 140mins.


The prodigal son of Dutch cinema comes home from Hollywood with the budget, production values and the epic nonchalance of the American Way packed in his suitcase. Black Book, Paul Verhoeven’s first European film for more than 20 years, is not a particularly original piece of cinema but it is rollicking, big-budget historical entertainment of the sort that the old continent so rarely gets right these days (the liberatory applause that wrapped its press screening in Venice was mainly pride that Europe can still do this kind of thing). The brash, Hollywood treatment of the Dutch World War Two Resistance theme sometimes stretches the historical record - but then this was never supposed to be a subtle exercise.

Commerically, Black Book will be an interesting market test. It features four languages – Dutch, German, English and Hebrew – during its course, so some subtitling will be inevitable in most territories (dubbing would really kill its case about the fragile identity of the Dutch language in and out of wartime). It’s not going to be that straightforward, either, to market a feature that is not quite a committed Holocaust drama, not quite a gung-ho war film and not quite a action-adventure romp: rather this is almost a case of The Piano meets The Third Man meets Kill Bill.

Recouping its $20m budget will need wide exposure: not a problem in Europe, where a whole raft of distributors (including Tartan in the UK and Pathe in France) have already bought Black Book, comforted no doubt by its muscular auxiliary prospects. It has yet to be sold to the US, although it has been nominated as the Dutch candidate for the foreign language Oscar, something where the Netherlands has often proved adept at making it through to the final five.

The action begins in occupied Holland during the late summer of 1944. Although the tide of war has started to turn against the Germans, this is little consolation to Jews like Rachel Stein (the ever-watchable Carice Van Houten), who sees her safe house bombed and her family gunned down while attempting to flee across the border. Rachel herself narrowly escapes, and soon hooks up with a group of Dutch resistance fighters who see her as a useful pawn for infiltrating German High Command in The Hague.

After dyeing her hair blonde and changing her name to Ellis De Vries, Rachel becomes the secretary and lover of Muntze (Sebastian Koch), a Nazi-with-a-conscience who is attempting to negotiate a secret truce with the Resistance. But when Rachel is double-crossed and accused of treachery, she is forced to go on the run from her former comrades-in-arms.

Plot switchbacks and reversals abound, and the whole thing moves along at a cracking pace. There’s a breezy brio to the exercise, refreshing in a film that touches on such dark themes; in Black Book, Verhoeven comes on like a contemporary David Lean, though the film lacks the final emotional punch of, say, Doctor Zhivago. In fact, Verhoeven and his co-writer Gerard Soeteman (who also wrote Verhoeven’s last World War Two film, Soldier Of Orange) are anxious to assure us that the heroine will come out of all this just fine: the first of the film’s bookends shows Rachel happily works on a kibbutz ten years after the end of the conflict.

The director clearly has an axe to grind with the more extreme elements of Dutch Protestant culture; the criticism is at its most strident in a lurid, gratuitously nasty scene near the end involving Rachel and a group of other prisoners accused of collaborating with the Nazis.

But overall Verhoeven’s direction is assured – and it’s backed up by an impressive range of technical contributions, from Independence Day cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub’s epic widescreen photography – enhanced by lighting that verges on the theatrical – to the crisp period costumes and production design.

The acting from the pan-European cast is solid throughout, but it’s Carice Van Houten who really compels the camera’s, and the audience’s, attention, with her ebullient account of a resourceful, fun-loving girl in a dark hour.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
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Sonic Youth
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Although it's more likely this is a 2007 film for the U.S., it looks like a sure nomination for Best Foreign Langugage film.

Go Netherlands!


Black Book
By DEREK ELLEY
Variety



Hollywood-honed tech smarts and European character sensibilities mesh entertainingly in pacy WWII resistance thriller "Black Book," helmer Paul Verhoeven's first feature in his native Netherlands for more than 20 years. Fictional tale, about a young Jewish woman who falls for a Gestapo officer while seeking revenge for her family's murders, moves like an express train across almost 2½ hours without any sense of rush and with strong, empathetic characters etched en route. Pre-sold to 50 territories (though so far not the U.S.), pic should easily slide into the black in non-Anglo territories, where the largely Dutch-German dialogue won't be a problem.
Anyone expecting a return to the rough, socially transgressive pics that Verhoeven first made a name with in the Netherlands will be disappointed by "Black Book." Film plays like a Euro version of his Stateside movies -- a technically slick, mainstream production that toys around in subtle ways with the genre in which it moves.

This could prove a problem in the U.S., as the film defiantly doesn't fall into the normal Hollywood-style, heart-on-sleeve template of nasty Nazis, persecuted Jews and unconflicted resistance warriors. It's also many notches above his earlier WWII drama, the heroic "Soldier of Orange" (1977), in complexity and production values.

Reunited with Dutch scripter Gerard Soeteman, with whom he made cheeky early classics like "Turkish Delight," "Spetters" and "The Fourth Man," Verhoeven has seemingly rethought all the usual cliches of WWII dramas. And as usual, he decided to mess a little with his audience's head.

There are no simple heroes or villains in the fast-paced, heavily plotted pic. And though there's little out-and-out comedy, there's still a sense of Verhoeven and Soeteman having some fun while keeping viewers on their toes and occasionally letting rip with gunfire and action. (Latter is always explosively staged, with granite-hard bullet play.)

Story is bookended by scenes on an Israeli kibbutz in 1956, where Rachel Rosenthal, nee Stein (Dutch thesp du jour Carice van Houten), accidentally meets former wartime friend Ronnie (Halina Reijn, spirited). This spurs one long flashback to WWII. The brief return to Israel at pic's end contains one rapid visual trope that may pass many auds by.

Main story, starting in Holland in September 1944, plunges straight into the action, with Rachel hiding out in the countryside with a strict Christian family. From the off, Soeteman keeps the dialogue loaded -- "If the Jews had listened to Jesus, we wouldn't be in the state we're in now," quips the family's sour-faced paterfamilias (Bert Luppes). But mostly he keeps the story moving forward in rapid brush-strokes.

Rachel narrowly escapes being blown to smithereens, is reunited with her family as they're shipped south by mysterious resistance worker Van Gein (Peter Blok, ghoulish), and is the only survivor when their boat is ambushed by an SS craft commanded by leering Guenther Franken (Waldemar Kobus, earthy).

Assigned the name Ellis de Vries, she gets work in a food plant run by communist resistance worker Gerben Kuipers (vet Derek de Lint), and five months later is involved in undercover missions.

During one of these, she gets to know local Gestapo chief Ludwig Muentze (Sebastian Koch), whom she first beds on resistance instructions and then falls for while working in his office. In the same office is Franken, whose sexual needs are catered to by co-worker Ronnie, an easy-come, easy-go girl.

That's just the first hour of an incredibly dense plot that sees Muentze morph into a sympathetic character -- and not through any simple conversion. Also, the loyalties of the resistance workers all come under suspicion when an opportunity to rescue Kuipers' imprisoned son goes horribly wrong. When peace is declared, the story is far from over, with multiple twists in the tale.


Notably, film uses no docu footage or devices like newspaper headlines to bolster the ongoing sense of the war and Nazi power waning. Focus is always on the (sizable) cast of central characters, and even Rachel/Ellis' Jewishness becomes almost peripheral to the action. Both that and all the characters' conflicted emotions are treated in an unsentimental, practical way as the tumblers in Soeteman's tightly constructed script click into place.

Rarely off-camera, Van Houten, only 29, throws herself into the part of a lifetime, with a face that can spin on a dime between fear, defiance, caprice and caring. But for all of Verhoeven's technical skills, the film still wouldn't work without her on-screen chemistry with Koch (the writer in "The Lives of Others"), who makes Muentze a tragically flawed figure rather than simple villain.

All the film's reported $22 million budget -- largest ever for a majority Dutch-language production -- is up on the screen, with costumes and production design having a convincingly lived-in feel. Anne Dudley's big orchestral score is too generic and themeless, but, along with the trim editing, does keep the full-bodied widescreen lensing by d.p. Karl Walter Lindenlaub ("Independence Day") moving.

Film will rep the Netherlands in the next Academy Awards' foreign-language category.


----------------------------------------------------





Black Book


By Ray Bennett
Hollywood Reporter



VENICE, Italy -- Paul Verhoeven's World War II drama "Black Book" is an ambitious throwback to the days of rousing all-action wartime pictures in which an intrepid loner risks everything to fight a clearly defined enemy. It succeeds on almost all fronts. The epic film is a high-octane adventure rooted in fact with a raft of arresting characters, big action sequences and twists and turns galore as a group of Dutch resistance fighters combat the Nazis not knowing they have a traitor at their core.

Top-flight production values and a ripping yarn should mean major boxoffice returns anywhere there is a taste for old-fashioned big-screen entertainment.

Set in German-occupied Holland in 1944, the film follows a young woman named Rachel (Carice van Houten) as she attempts to flee the Nazis with her own and other Jewish families. Having purchased their river passage with all they own, they find the escape is a trap as they are intercepted by the Gestapo and mercilessly mown down.

All except Rachel, who finds her way to a group of resistance fighters run by man named Kuipers (Derek de Lint), who operates a soup kitchen as cover for his sabotage operations. Quickly recruited into the group's inner circle led by daredevil Hans (Thom Hoffman), Rachel demonstrates her bravery and resourcefulness in an encounter on a train with an SS officer named Muntze (Sebastian Koch).

Soon, Rachel is ensconced at the local Gestapo headquarters, sleeping with Muntze and working with a local floozy, Ronnie (Halina Reijn), in the office of a brutal officer named Franken (Waldemar Kopus).

Even though the end of the war is barely months away, the danger increases for the resistance group. When she discovers that there has been a plot involving both Nazis and Dutch in faking escape plans for Jewish families who are murdered and robbed, she finds herself with enemies on all sides.

Director Verhoeven, back on home turf after the Hollywood excesses of "Starship Troopers" and "Showgirls," has fashioned an exciting tale with co-scripter Gerard Soeteman, who developed the original story. Production designer Wilbert van Dorp and cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub have done a great job in creating period detail and capturing fast-moving sequences and intimate moments. Editors Job ter Burg and James Herbert contribute fine work, and Oscar-winning composer Anne Dudley's score complements it all effectively.

Van Houten makes a memorable heroine, a singer as well as a good actress, in what is a very punishing role. Koch and Hoffman do a lot to give their stereotyped roles some originality.

The filmmakers strive hard to root the picture in genuine drama. There are bookends set in Israel that add considerable emotional resonance. While the revelation of the traitor smacks of melodrama, the high adventure is mixed with moments of authentic wartime pathos.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
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