Diary of a survivor

Rating: Null/10 (28 April 2007)

Coming from the director of "Robocop", "Total recall", "Basic instinct" and "Hollow man", this movie has more of the hallmark of a spy thriller than a holocaust epic. While billed as "based on true events", an assertion that is so vague that invites unabashed overuse, this movie comes with such a proliferation of twists that it epitomizes the cliché "truth is stranger than fiction". Still, the basic plot is quite simple, and as universal as "Star wars"  good against evil. The good is the Dutch underground resistance during Nazi occupation. The evil is a loose organization that rounds up and kills Jews, where racial motivation is only secondary, if at all. They don't kill any Jew, but only rich Jews, for obvious reasons. The tantalizing suspense is in the guessing and then revelation of the villains, one after another.
Those who remember "Basic instinct" (and who wouldn't?) will know of course that suspense is not director Paul Verhoeven's only trump card. At 68, he can still deliver the sensual lure you expect, through the protagonist Rachel, a "Greta Garbo" of a young Jewish singer who, after her rich family was killed by the villains mentioned above, joins the underground resistance  ready, willing and able to "go all the way" in vindication. Fresh-looking, mesmerizing young Dutch actress Carice van Houten has both the physical endowment and emotion acting range to give a memorable performance. Playing opposite her, as a Nazi officer who still has a heart, is Sebasitan Koch, who is equally memorable, not in this movie, but in his recent appearance in the Oscar winning German movie "The live of others".
Watching "Black book" will not give you the sense of artistic elation you get after watching "Schindler's list" (and even that one some consider to be too commercialized), but is nevertheless 145 minutes of good entertainment.