Flesh + Blood: The Films of Paul Verhoeven: Black Book Review - NP Approved

Black Book (2006)

Cast: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Country: Netherlands | Germany | UK | Belgium
Genre: Drama | Thriller | War
Official Site: Here

Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for TIFF’s Flesh + Blood: The Films of Paul Verhoeven which runs from January 24th to April 4th at TIFF Bell Lightbox. For more information on upcoming TIFF film series visit http://tiff.net and follow TIFF on Twitter at @TIFF_NET.

Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book was the first film he made in his native Holland since moving out to Hollywood to fill our eyes with graphically violent sci-fi and sex 20 years earlier.  It also may be his finest film.  I realize people would argue for the gritty satire of RoboCop (1987) or the psychological underpinnings of Total Recall (1990) or some of his early Dutch films, but this one has everything Verhoeven is known for, that is sex and violence, while also achieving an actual storyline that is involving and even emotional.

Set against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of Holland, the film tells the harrowing story of Rachael Stein (Carice van Houten), a Jewish woman who joins the Dutch resistance after her family and a boat of Jewish people are gunned down by Nazis as they attempt to cross the border into Belgium.  Rachael was the only one to escape the ambush and is smuggled back into The Hague by the Dutch Resistance.

… this one has everything Verhoeven is known for, that is sex and violence, while also achieving an actual storyline that is involving and even emotional.

She joins them and during her first mission, saves the radio they are smuggling by cleverly taking the bags into the compartment of a high-ranking SS officer and engaging him in conversation.  His compartment of course is skipped during the bag check and so everything is safe.  When several resistance members are captured upon the discovery of smuggled weapons, Rachael (now under the name of Ellis de Vries to hide her Jewish roots…along with a blond dye job) is asked to infiltrate the SS headquarters based on her meeting Ludwig Muntze (Sebastian Koch) on the train.  She is asked to go so far as to be his lover, which she becomes.

As the story progresses, lots of twists and turns arise that make this into a crackerjack spy film as well as a document of the Nazi occupation of Holland, a country that is often overlooked in WWII films in favor of France or Poland.  That’s a shame because it robs us of the opportunity to see stories like those of Ms. Stein (the film is based on, or at least inspired by, a true story).  These stories are worth telling, even if they don’t take place in the better documented countries.

For his part as co-screenwriter, Verhoeven creates in Rachael/Ellis a sympathetic character that is also hardened by not only her circumstances but her resolve as well.  She is determined to live through the war and that determination and willingness to do anything to survive is the very heart of the film.  Verhoeven isn’t known for well-drawn characters, so it came as quite a shock that this film is littered with them.  Every major character from Rachael/Ellis and Muntze to Resistance fighter/doctor Hans (Thom Hoffman) and Ronnie (Halina Reijn), Rachael/Ellis’ friend in the SS compound, are all individuals who feel three-dimensional and never flat or stereotypical.  I don’t know if that’s Verhoeven’s hand or co-writer Gerard Soeteman’s but whosever it is, it’s a good hand to have in the film.

As to Verhoevan as a director, this is the least clunky and bombastic I’ve ever seen him.  In fact, the film is directed with an elegance and quiet style that is more reminiscent of his earlier works, though much more assured. 

As to Verhoevan as a director, this is the least clunky and bombastic I’ve ever seen him.  In fact, the film is directed with an elegance and quiet style that is more reminiscent of his earlier works, though much more assured.  He keeps a lighter feeling to the piece, despite the horrible acts of violence that are often depicted.  Through his style, he allows Rachael/Ellis to maintain a level of optimism through the darkest passage of her life.  This tone in no way deflates the brutality of what is shown either, which is a very tricky thing to do.  Treat a violent film too lightly and it becomes violence for entertainment and comedy, treat it too heavily and it becomes dour and unbearable.  Verhoeven strikes the right balance and makes the violence detestable but it is not enough to weigh down his main character or the film.

With as much violence and blood as there is in the film, there is more sex and nudity.  But it is not sex and nudity just for their sakes; Verhoeven uses it to explore one of his common themes, that is that the power in sex is the woman’s, not the man’s.   Since the opposite is normally portrayed and men, with the thrusting and penetrating, are often seen to have the upper hand in sexual relations, the juxtaposition in this and other Verhoeven works like Basic Instinct (1992), many of his early films and even the laughably bad Showgirls (1995), lets us in on the secret that it’s women who control the encounters and get what they want out of them.  Rachael/Ellis uses sex to gain a position in the SS office where she can plant listening devices and gather information for the resistance.  Some may see this as demeaning women, saying that the only way they can get ahead is through sex, but I rather see it as these women understanding what power they hold and exploiting it.

Another great asset to the film is Carice van Houten.  She plays Rachael/Ellis in a way that draws you to her.  She is a charismatic character, a singer before the war so she knows how to work a crowd or a single person.  She has a steely interior that she never lets take over her external personality.  The juggling act of emotion that van Houten has to put on is quite impressive.  It is her magnetism as an actress that works in perfect concert with the technical side of the film and keeps you riveted to the screen.  This is far from her first film, but her work was not especially known over here until after this film.  Since then, she starred in another WWII thriller: Valkyrie (2008) and was in the most recent season of Game of Thrones.  I’m glad that she’s getting more exposure outside her native Holland because she is a force in this film and deserves to be more widely known.

The one thing I urge viewers to look past when watching this film is the spy thriller aspect to the film.  Yes, it is technically a spy thriller, but it’s so much more than that.  It’s a successful attempt to put Holland’s wartime difficulties on screen and even more than that it’s the story of a dauntless woman who faced death many times over and lived (since the film is told in flashback, it’s not spoiling anything to say that she lived a happy life on a kibbutz in Israel after the war).  This is a story of survival, not just of the survival of Rachael Stein, but that of an entire country and, elliptically, even an entire continent and world.   Not only that, but it is the clearest demonstration yet of how masterful a storyteller Verhoeven can be when he puts his mind to it.  If this is the harbinger of what he will do with the rest of his career, I can say I am excited.  And since he’s only directed one barely feature-length film since Black Book, only time will tell what direction he’s headed.