I was really curious. Everybody claimed that the Dutch Paul Verhoeven's Zwartboek is one of the best films from 2006. Yes, I asked exactly the same question: Paul Verhoeven?? If it wouldn't ring the bell, I tell you: he is responsible for the Robocop, Total Recall (ok, I agree, that's a good one), Starship Troopers or Basic Instinct, moreover after Black Book, he is shooting now the second part of The Thomas Crown Affair. Nice oeuvre, but how fits a Dutch-Dutch movie into this row? After 145 well spent minutes I try to tell.The film which inspired by real events tells a rather adventurous story of a young Jewish girl (strong debut of Carice van Houten - next time we'll see her in Singer's highly waited Valkyrie...) during the endphase of the Second World War somewhere in the German occupied Netherlands. Sounds almost banal, maybe even familiar, but don't think that you've seen this version already. There isn't any heroism, but more pacifism (must be Verhoeven's homecoming canossa after his Hollywood bitch-trip..) - there aren't Oskar Schindlers or Itzhak Sterns, but classic brutal Nazi figures (my favorite is definitely the disgusting Franken), traitors and rats among the Dutch resistence too. And there is an absurd love which shows the Holocaust more senseless and pointless than any other desperate efforts in film history.
But what is the Black Book's secret? Why it is worth to watch? Because the film unfolds its story almost without any emotional "comments", without any handkerchief-manipulation. It says how it was, or how it could have happened, and nothing more. Series of events which are going from A point to B. Calm, dispassionate, detached, ... simple, but with an affect on you! And this is the biggest contribution from a director who could have been poisoned with the Hollywood way of emotionalizing...
(The one, who will find the scene where the Zwartboek refers to the Basic Instinct will receive my first bobbyperu award:)
9/10
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