Micitype Pretty Good

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Red-125 The Dutch movie Zwartboek was shown in the U.S. with the translated title Black Book (2006). It was co-written and directed by Paul Verhoeven.The movie shows us the ghastly treatment of Dutch Jews--and, in fact Dutch people in general--during the German occupation of Holland. Rachel Stein--who changes her name to Ellis de Vries--is a Jewish woman who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to Israel. (We know that she survives because the first scene of the film begins with Rachel teaching an elementary class in a kibbutz in Israel. The rest of the movie is shown as Rachel's flashback.)The plot tells us how she survived, and how she was able to help the Dutch resistance movement as they tried to free their country from the Germans. The movie is extremely convoluted. It's also incredibly violent. It's definitely not for the faint of heart.The film works because Carice van Houten is so convincing as Rachel Stein/Ellis de Vries. Of course, she's very beautiful, but she's also a great actor. Her beauty enables her to infiltrate the German headquarters, and her intelligence allows her to survive, even though betrayal is everywhere.The film is long, very sexual, and, as I stated, very violent. If that's the type of film you like, don't miss The Black Book. This really isn't my kind of movie, so I gave it a rating of 7. However, the overall IMDb rating is 7.8, so other reviewers like it better than I did. We saw the film on DVD, where it worked well. We watched it straight through. However, it's 2 1/2 hours long, so you could watch half of it one day, and the other half the next.

tomgillespie2002 Before he dazzled Hollywood with his blood-soaked satires Robocop (1987) and Starship Troopers (1997) - and made us cringe with Basic Instinct (1992) and Showgirls (1995) - director Paul Verhoeven made Soldier of Orange (1977) in his native Netherlands, a film about the Dutch resistance movement during World War II which starred Rutgher Hauer. Almost thirty years later, and only six years since Hollow Man (2000) seemed to drain him of his creativity, Verhoeven returned to his homeland to make Zwartboek (Black Book), and to again highlight his country's heroic struggle during the Nazi occupation.In 1944, Dutch Jew Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten), a singer living in Berlin before the war, hides from the Nazi regime in the war-torn Netherlands. When the farmhouse she was hiding in is destroyed by the Americans, she is forced to flee, reuniting with her family before setting off by boat to the safer south. However, the boat is ambushed by the Nazis and Rachel narrowly escapes with her life, watching her entire family murdered in the process. Lost and alone, she decides to join the resistance in The Hague, where her many talents are put to good use. A chance meeting on a train leads her to charming the socks off high-ranking Nazi officer Ludwig Muntze (Sebastian Koch), so Rachel, under the guise of Ellis de Vries, is given the task of seducing him.World War II movies seem to be made with one of two intentions. One is to delve into the human soul and explore the horrors of battle, and the other is to simply entertain. Verhoeven's movie seems to lie somewhere in between, and the results are intriguing to say the least. Too often does the drama get interrupted by an unnecessary gun battle or explosion for the film to be taken too seriously, but, even at 145 minutes, Black Book is never in danger of dragging. It also never misses an opportunity to get van Houten in the nude, but to anyone familiar with the work of Paul Verhoeven, this will come as no surprise. While the actress now most famous as Melisandre the Red Priestess in Game of Thrones is staggeringly beautiful, her constant clothes-shedding hardly serves the plot or her character.In fact, Black Book asks a hell of a lot of van Houten, who is forced to don a number of faces and personalities as her character digs herself deeper into the role of secret agent and uncovers betrayals and secret plots at every turn. She handles it exceptionally well, and van Houten really should have gone on to be a A-lister after this. She has a sparkling chemistry with Koch, who is also very good as the man on the side facing defeat, hoping to agree a truce with the resistance to avoid more bloodshed. It's a handsomely shot film all round, made all the more staggering that this was conceived on such a modest budget, and it's clear that Verhoeven was out to make a movie he could be proud of. While his familiar exploitative approach prevents it from being great, Black Book is never boring and is peppered with enough grey characters (Verhoeven certainly doesn't white-wash the portrayal of his fellow Dutch) to keep the twists and turns coming until the very end.

Alex Deleon Viewed at Rouen Nordic Film Festival 2007. The undisputed highlight of an otherwise routine week in Rouen was that "Basic Instinct" man, Paul Verhoeven's new Dutch film, "Zwartboek" or (the little) Black Book. After a 20 year Hollywood career during which the Dutch director came up with such megahits as "Robocop" and "Basic Instinct" Black Book marks his return to his native turf and native language. The story, co-written by Verhoeven, centers on a very attractive Jewish woman who is the sole survivor of a group of Jews attempting to escape from occupied Holland towards the end of the war in a boat. Posing as a gentile blonde under a non-Jewish name (her false papers furnished by the Underground) she becomes the mistress of a highly placed Gestapo officer and is given a job in Gestapo Headquarters from where she is able to pass critical information on to the resistance. However, one thing leads to another in this highly charged complex plot where everybody is double-crossing everybody else in a typically Verhoevenesque drama of interlocking paranoia. Eventually Miss De Vries's cover is blown and another ultimately sleazy Gestaponik succeeds in making it look like she is actually collaborating with the Krauts. In the end as the Americans arrive and the country is liberated she is being chased by both sides -- especially because she has come into possession of a little black book which gives facts, figures, and names of key people involved in the fake smuggling of Jews with big-big dividends. In a role which reads something like The Perils of Pauline in WW II our heroine (Carice van Houten) at one point has to gobble a whole chocolate bar to counteract a nearly fatal dose of insulin injected into her arm by a false Dutch "hero" of The Resistance.The plot is so complicated that it may take two viewings to sort it all out, but one thing which is perfectly clear -- (to invoke the words of an infamous ex-president) -- perfectly clear it is, that Carice van Houten, the heroine of the story, is, with this film, well on the way to installing herself as the next great international female Superstar. (Remember, you read it here first!) Ms. Van Houten, who is probably pushing thirty, has been around for a while and is currently the most popular actress in Holland -- which isn't saying much in terms of international recognition, but Little Black Book is on marquees almost everywhere so it seems to be only a matter of time before she is discovered by the outside world. Van Houten has a screen presence far more gripping than Sharon Stone, who became an overnight star as the heroine of Verhoeven's "Basic Instinct" circa 1991 and is a far better actress.If "Black Book", which is currently on wide release in the States, doesn't do it for her all Verhoeven needs to do to launch another (more high-powered) Sharon Stone, is to come out with "Basic Instinct III" with Van Houten in the lead and La Stone will be a forgotten melody. Carice van Houten has it all; charisma, good looks both enigmatic and down-to-earth, sex appeal to burn -- AND she can act! This may be ridiculously early to talk about Oscar 2008, but in my book she's already there.PS: Alas, Van Houten was never discovered by Hollywood -- their loss!

maria-ricci-1983 I cannot understand how this movie gets 7.8 in IMDb. It is a complete disaster! How a tragic, dramatically dense and tense theme (promising extraordinary things had a talented scriptwriter taken the job) ended up as a bland cartoon with linear characters and all disrespect for credibility is something truly unexplainable.There is not a single credible scene in the movie; nothing sticks to the golden rule of plausibility: neither the direction, nor the acting and much less the script. Even if this is based on real events, the director has managed to present them in the most unbelievable way, not once, not twice, but scene after scene until the end, making the spectators sigh with regret and repeating to themselves "Oh, come on! Not again! Is this a joke?".The characters in a Disney cartoon have more depth and hues than the ones we find here. Lieutenant Franken?? My goodness, his villain smiles and his acting deserve to be nominated among the worst of the decade. The arch villains in Batman (the 60s TV series by Adam West) make more complex characters.The twists and turns in the plot, which should have contributed to create tension and suspense, are so serendipitous, stretched out and poorly presented that they make you laugh or cover your face in embarrassment: "Is this Saturday Night Live and I have missed the initial credits?".In short, although I was very well predisposed to enjoy this movie when it started, I couldn't have been more disappointed.