Is war beautiful?

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2008)

Welcome to Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book"; a world of beautiful film-making and storytelling. Beautiful film-making because everything looks like out of a painting: everyone's perfectly dressed even when they're not wearing nice clothes (even the poor look nice), every scenery seems unique and specifically designed for each scene. Beautiful storytelling because what happens in the film is very well told and the words are the right ones. However, all of this beautifulness suddenly seems so painful if I tell you what the story is about.
Inspired by true events of World War II, Verhoeven's script (written alongside Gerard Soeteman) introduces to Rachel (Carice Van Houten), a beautiful Dutch Jewish woman who will later be known as Ellis de Vries because she will risk her life by infiltrating the Nazi headquarters office and seducing Chief Ludwig Muntze (Sebastian Koch, from "The Lives of Others"); all for the support of the Dutch Resistance and the people who saved her life.
This is a movie, because what you've just read-the way I described it, at least- is the kind of thing that occurs in a picture. Well, in this particular picture characters also like to reference other pictures and their stars (Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo). In my opinion, the contrast of everything looking perfect while there's a war going on is one of the things that makes "Black Book" a very special experience. The film takes us places; not only to those places and sceneries that invade the screen but to places beyond, like the place I like to call 'forbidden love', or 'silent suffering' or even 'unexpected friendship'.
Yes, "Black Book" is not another movie about the war. The war will always be here (as it can be appreciated near the ending), and Verhoeven uses this specific war as a background to give us, firstly; the look of that period and era, secondly; a tremendous spectacle in which things don't need to blow up all the time. A spectacle that involves drama, action, suspense and the human relationships I mentioned above.
There's suspense in the way characters come up with rescue plans we normally see in the best crime movies; action in how these plans turn out, usually not well; human relationships in a romance that grows without us having to completely witness it and a friendship that emerges from need but solidifies with time. You have to pay attention, because it may be a perfectly looking world, but that doesn't mean the plot will be perfectly served for your comprehension.
I forgot to mention drama, which we can find in all the performances, starting from Van Houten, whose performance isn't great because of the pain she expresses out loud but because of the pain she lets us feel in her soft and troubled face. I'm talking about a pain built on expression, in a character that uses words as a shield. Koch delivers a fine performance, and so does Halina Reijn as Ellis/Rachel's friend.
This is just to mention a few names, because every performance is astounding and every scene works carefully to detail the personalities of characters I haven't mentioned yet and won't mention at all. Maybe there are scenes that don't serve the development of the film and that Verhoeven could have done without.
But these are just a few, and don't change the fact that "Black Book" is a triumphant film by a director who knows how to entertain without having to worry so much about realism; and by this I hope you don't assume I'm saying the movie is not realistic at all. But it's entirely true what they say sometimesthat it's enough with a good story.