lots of Nazi resistance-fighting intrigue, an ideal cast, good but bulky thriller

Rating: 7/10 (29 April 2007)

Paul Verhoven isn't ever known so much for subtlety as a director, and Black Book doesn't really make any big steps to change that. It is, unlike his films from the past dozen or so years, not intentionally sleazy or overridden with lots of gruesome carnage. There's even a sense that he's probably quite passionate about making a film loaded with gripping history and lots of 'cinematic' characters (not totally real, not totally fake either). But it's also one where melodrama reigns over real incisive dramatic skills, and unlike the recently re-released Army of Shadows there's almost an exhausting quality to the twists and turns, the core being more about direct audience manipulation as opposed to more subdued theatrics. Not that this is the worst thing a director like Verhoven can do, and Black Book is loaded with the kind of entertaining goodies that other directors would shy away from. That it's not a great film- like it might think it is- is hard to ignore.
Carice Van Houten puts in a breakthrough performance (breakthrough in that it calls for some greater things for her in Hollywood) as a Jewish woman who loses her family during a shooting via the Nazis. She joins up with the resistance, and her part in it will be, primarily, to sleep with enemy to get information. A little implausible? Not quite, as it's supposedly based on true events (whether it was a Jewish woman sleeping with the enemy or just in the little details of the Dutch resistance is up for argument), and soon the story unfolds in double-crosses and criss-crosses where you're never too sure after a while (and after the war ends) who's really a good guy or not, as for the most part few are. In general, Verhoven puts these double crosses- which end up making the film slightly bulkier than it needs to be- as a cynical but poignant point about loss of trust and all morals in times of war coming to a head. Rachel "Ellis" Stein (Van Houten) also falls into what the script entails, of her falling in love with the main commanding officer she has to sleep with, which is rather circumspect in logical terms.
But then again, after a while, looking at Black Book, ironically for it's veneer being that of an old-fashioned good versus evil story, things become subversive for a reason. The resistance itself, for example, is quite corruptible even with its higher ideals of eradicating all of the Nazis (the ugly side of which personified in the character of the portly Franken, who originally killed Rachel's family), and even have a double side to dealing with the Jewish people; does one value a Dutchman over a Jew becomes one of the central questions for the resistance fighters. And throughout Verhoven is on top of his game directing scenes strongly, with just what is needed for each scene, however convoluted, and the performances usually right on the money (The Lives of Others' Sebastian Koch is a believable Nazi turncoat). It is, more often than not, a satisfying entry in the filmmaker's career, and even a return to form after running out of steam with his big Hollywood sci-fi productions. That it's also quite shallow, and with more than one or two really ridiculous scenes (one scenes subtext might be 'is that a gun popping under the bed, or are you just happy to see me?'), is maybe to be expected considering the track record of the filmmaker.