It should have been on several kinds of top movies lists.

Rating: 8/10 (10 October 2008)

I saw it minutes ago, I know it's not very "objective" to write comments right after seeing a film, but here we are commentators, not established critics. I was sure I would find this in the Top 250, but I was a bit negatively surprised, again.
Before seeing it I didn't know what it was exactly about, I just knew that it's a story at the time of World War II. I really did not expect such a gripping and twisted thriller, more of a drama and luckily you get all of it. There are moments when you are at the edge of your seat because of the brutality between the Germans and the Dutch resistance, the filmmakers do not spare much with the violence. I haven't seen exactly every movie about WW II, but this one is such that it can really make you squeeze your teeth when you think of the Germans at that time. But I wouldn't say it's in any way offensive of Germans, because by the time of the third part, it seems that the blood is on each and everyones hands.
The story is really one of the most intriguing ones I've seen in a long time. And everything is enriched with the acting, for which the main credits go to Carice van Houten as Rachel Stein/Ellis de Vries. Speaking just out of the blue, she seems to have buckets of talent and if she can handle this, she can handle anything. The supporting cast as well. This film really seems like a quite heavy thing to pull of so authentically as it was. In the end it made me feel exhausted and shaken.
There is also one other thing that is worth mentioning, and that is that this film is not American, which shows a lot in the way it's made. There are scenes that are those by-the-way scenes, pulled of so easily and naturally, but you would probably never see them in a Hollywood picture with similar content. Think of the conversation between Ellis and Ronnie in the toilette, to give just one example. It's true that a lot of American films are adult-oriented dramas, but in a different style than European films. But this kind of difference of European cinema is just another plus in my opinion. All I can say is that Zwartboek is simply a "two thumbs up", to express myself in the usual critical manner.