imperfect justice

Rating: 7/10 (16 October 2019)

Paul Verhoeven and Quentin Tarantino belong to a separate category of directors. Their films loaded with violence and in the case of Verhoeven and eroticism, both explicit and extreme to the conventional tastes, risk calculated and intentionally attracting the public for the wrong reasons. Paul Verhoeven's 'Zwartboek' ('Black Book' or 'Black Book') from 2006 is in many ways similar to 'Inglourious Basterds' which Tarantino brought to the screens in 2009. Both films are approaching the final period of -the Second World War in a very different way from other films dealing with this war, the Resistance, and the Holocaust. The two films copiously use elements from the spy and action movie kit to tackle a theme where there apparently wouldn't be much room for an entertainment atmosphere. In addition, both films use the entertainment vehicle to bring to light less-known and less-accepted aspects, some very uncomfortable, about those spent in that troubled historical period.
The story takes place in the last year of WWII in the occupied Netherlands, a period during which the mass deportations of Jews by the Nazis and their local accomplices took place. Rachel Stein, the main heroine of the film (played by the attractive and talented Carice van Houten ), a young and beautiful Jewish singer, sees the Dutch family hiding her killed, and then her entire family slaughtered in an attempt to save themselves by fleeing to liberated Belgium. Obliged to remain in the Netherlands, she joins a Resistance group. Receiving the mission to infiltrate the German command in The Hague, she meets the Gestapo chief, discovers that he is more human than many of his subordinates and falls in love with him. This relationship is just one of the less believable elements of a plot that is about as realistic as a James Bond movie script. The non-credible love story between the Jewish survivor and resistant and the Gestapo chief cannot end well, and after the end of the war, Rachel (or Ellis in her assumed identity) is suspected of treason and accused of collaboration with the Nazis. The end of the war does not mean justice for all criminals or relief for all their victims. All will end well, somehow, for those who will survive.
145 minutes of screening pass quickly for action movies fans. From a visual point of view 'Black Book' often looks like a Hitchcock movie, except that the element of psychological terror adds a lot of explicit violence plus the dose of eroticism characteristic to most of Verhoeven's films. But these should not distract attention from a few unique elements. History is not at all embellished in this movie. Jews trying to save their lives buy their freedom with money, jewelry and gold bars. The help received from others is not always disinterested, and Jews are often robbed and betrayed. The members of the Resistance are not presented strictly under a heroic light, there are also traitors among them, they are divided by ideological and religious conflicts. Not all Germans in the movie are 'bad guys' and not all Dutch are 'good guys'. The post-Liberation justice is far from impartial, and the behavior of the victors towards those suspected of collaboration is as violent and humiliating as the one of the Nazis, even if it is adorned with national colored flags. 'Black Book' was the returning home movie of Verhoeven after a two decades career in Hollywood. The film was well received despite its critical aspects. Verhoeven's style is visible not only in the visual treatment and the commercial cinematographic elements, but also in the extreme ambiguity of some of the situations. As for many of his films, from 'Black Book' we will later remember the controversies.