Verhoeven should not have come back to Holland for this

Rating: 4/10 (22 October 2006)

Dutch director Paul Verhoeven left the Netherlands some 25 odd years ago because him and his movies were perceived as 'perverse' and 'dirty'. At least that's what his reasons were according to his '95 Razzie-acceptance speech, the award he was given for Showgirls. As far as Zwartboek goes, I think he should have stayed in the States, concentrating on what he does best: Verhoeven-style SF like Robocop, Total Recall and most notably -in my opinion- Starship Troopers, for awarding this movie with an average of '8' at the IMDb-votes is a flat-out insult for other movie(maker)s.
Zwartboek claims to be a -somewhat politically incorrect- World War II story about a Jewish girl whose hiding address gets bombed, joins the Dutch resistance, stoops a few German officers to spy at the Nazi HQ in Amsterdam and saves the f-ing day. A fictional story, but Verhoeven nonetheless makes it seem this is what Holland looks like in 1944, post D-day. A country where a Jewish girl can apparently walk about town as if no war was going on and no Jews were (still) being deported to Nazi death camps. Where a Jewish girl can show her (beautiful) legs when passing German Soldiers. Where a Jewish girl can walk into a notary's office, show a picture of her rich parents and walk out with some 50.000 guilders 'spendingmoney'(roughly equals 30.000 US dollars or 200 grand in 2006-currency). Where a Jewish girl not only can infiltrate a Nazi Headquarters, but also sleep with a high SD Officer, sing at Hitler's birthday party and have access to all kinds of information regarding her imprisoned and soon to be executed resistance buddies. Likely? Not very.
Zwartboek won several 'Golden Calfs' (Dutch Oscars) at the Dutch Film Festival in Utrecht, including 'Best Picture' and 'Best actress in a leading role' (Awards that should have gone to Warmerdam's "Ober", by the way). Carice van Houten plays her part wonderfully, no comment there, just not very convincing. That lies in the plot however, not in her acting (with a bit of luck she might be landing an important role in a major motion picture in Hollywood some time in the near future). It's just that she does not stop smiling and singing in this movie. Consider a Jewish girl whose cover has been blown, whose parents and brother are subsequently killed, whose newfound buddies are in extreme peril (being captured by German soldiers and all..), that sleeps with a SD officer, sings and dances with the Nazi pig (as he is portrayed) that killed her family and is betrayed by those same newfound buddies. And then picture a beautiful young girl that does not stop smiling..
Verhoeven's (partly self-written) picture, however fictional, tries to create a factual image of almost postwar (excusez Le badly chosen mot) of late '44 Holland in an Jewish-heroin-war story, but ends up as a highly unnecessary sensational popcorn-epic that misses every convincing aspect. I shall not go into detail, but about every 4 minutes of this 145 minute feature contains very unlikely events, effectively ruining the conscious movie-goers viewing pleasure. An insult to the WWII movie archives.