It wasn't like that at all

Rating: 3/10 (31 January 2013)

I once knew a Dutch lady who as a young girl had lived through the Battle of Arnhem. Asked what she thought of the film 'A Bridge too Far' she said: 'It wasn't like that at all'. 'Zwartboek', a film on the theme of resistance and repression in the Netherlands during World War II, has an even more tenuous link to reality, although Verhoeven has invested heavily in making the thing look realistic: dialogues in four languages; lots of historic vehicles and aircraft; celebrations of the liberation modelled on colour pictures available from those days; soup kitchens with boys scraping out the food containers; the delectable Carice van Houten dyeing all her hair in order to become Aryan Ellis instead of Jewish Rachel. That includes her pubic hair, and here we get a glimpse (or two) of what Verhoeven really wanted to do with this picture: make lots of money. Which is fine, and not something most Dutch film directors are good at.
'Zwartboek' is not a documentary. But if you spend so much on recreating reality you might as well do it properly – I want value for money when I watch a film. Knowing a few things about pre-1960s planes I felt cheated right at the start: Verhoeven might have rented an authentic German plane to intercept the American bomber – they are available. Then, in order to gain height, the stricken bomber jettisons its bombs. Quite logical, but it would do that in one go, not as shown: one, just a splash in the lake two, a bit of an explosion right next to the little yacht carrying Rachel and a friend which briefly rocks the boat three – wham!!! There goes the remote farm in which she hides from the Nazis. These are on the spot in half a minute (I timed them), Rachel's identity card is found and the fun can start.
Some scenes in the film hit home alright. But there is just too much nonsense:

A river barge is to take a number of refugees through the Biesbosch marshes to the safety of the liberated south of the Netherlands. This sort of thing did happen regularly towards the end of the war, but not on that (dangerous) scale and the skipper would (a) never have set out in broad daylight; (b) have made sure that his passengers were hidden below deck instead of lounging on top as if on a cruise. But of course that makes it easier for them to be shot, which happens. After a hit in the forehead the indestructible Rachel makes her escape.

Ellis and the rather nice Sicherheitsdienst officer (something of a contradiction) she will eventually bed for the sake of the resistance get friendly over his stamp collection! Well, this apparently happened in those days: I read somewhere that war-time US president Roosevelt seduced a woman that way. (Our heroine – a feminist touch - does the philatelic seducing).

Why on earth would the baddie risk his life in the shootout in the cellar of the SD building? And why would the Germans have bothered setting such a risky trap when they could quite simply have blocked the coal chute of the cellar? (Likely answer: because then there would have been no reason for a shootout).

The cauldron of ordure poured out over Ellis as a suspected 'Moffenhoer' (Nazi whore). It is a fact that those suspected of collaborating with the Germans were often subjected to inhuman treatment; but this is Grand Guignol theatre, Wagner from the sewers.

I was soon laughing again, though. The near-final scene, where the baddie gets screwed (literally) in his coffin, was straight out of Polanski's 'Fearless Vampire Killers'. A real howler.

I have known people who were in the Dutch resistance, who were imprisoned in German camps, who spent years in hiding. I am pretty certain that they would have found this film cheap, in spite of all the expense, and that they would have said: 'It wasn't like that at all.'