Black Book

Some directors succeed because of their careers. Others succeed in spite of them. Take Paul Verhoeven, for instance. His last six films read like a gradual descent into career suicide: RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Hollow Man. These are all cult classics at best, and gargantuan misfires at worst. He has also been routinely criticized for being exploitative in his depiction of sex and violence. And yet, after a five-year hiatus, Verhoeven has done the impossible. He’s made Zwartboek—Black Book—a film that returns the director to his Dutch roots, and has garnered international critical acclaim, even snagging the top prize at last year’s Netherlands Film Festival. Yet the film has succeeded not because it represents a departure from Verhoeven’s previous work. It instead puts his artistic strengths in service of a story so strong, that it would take someone like Ed Wood—or Michael Bay—to truly screw it up.

The mind-bogglingly radiant Carice van Houten stars as Rachel, a Dutch-Jewish woman whose life in an Israeli kibbutz—circa 1956—bookends the film, which is comprised of an epic flashback set twelve years prior. Rachel’s story truly begins in Holland, as she hides from the Nazis within the sanctuary of a strict Christian family. In one of the film’s few lighthearted moments, she crudely draws a cross in her oatmeal, as a quiet act of rebellion. Eventually, Rachel reunites with her family, only to see them mowed down in a hail of German bullets, as their escape attempt reveals itself as a trap. She decides to join the resistance, where she finds herself faced with a harrowing task. Under the assigned name of Ellis de Vries, she goes undercover, seducing local Gestapo chief Ludwig Muntze, played by Sebastian Koch from The Lives of Others. In pure melodramatic fashion, Rachel finds herself accidentally falling for Muntze. Think Notorious if Ingrid Bergman fell for Claude Rains.

The above synopsis barely scratches the surface of Black Book’s script, by Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman, which basically consists of one spectacular plot twist after another. Fueled by breathless pacing and exhilarating invention, Verhoeven succeeds—for perhaps the first time since Starship Troopers—in getting his audience intoxicated with the sheer entertainment value of his production. It’s only appropriate that the heroine is compared to Greta Garbo, since the entire film carries the larger-than-life, splashy aura of an old-fashioned Hollywood blockbuster—plus ample amounts of nudity and gore. The luminous cinematography by Karl Walter Lindenlaub is often utilized to accentuate the beauty of Houten, who faces her character’s endless obstacles with what can only be referred to as inexhaustible pluck. This may also be the first film I’ve ever seen that includes the line, “You’re going to Bible class! Bring your s—t buckets!”

Yet as spellbinding as Black Book’s ferociously exciting spectacle is, it nevertheless feels strangely hollow. When a film spends much of its running time fictionally depicting historical atrocities, should it really leave the audience with nothing more than the giddy sensation of escapist delight? It’s the most shamelessly fun movie about Nazis since the Indiana Jones pictures, and there’s something wrong about that. Verheoeven puts a whole lot of human suffering on display, yet he never truly manages to bruise the soul. His palpable enjoyment of action set-pieces and sexually-charged encounters resonates throughout the entire enterprise, and at times makes the film feel like a glorious game of survival. Though Houten is a wonderfully vibrant presence throughout the picture, she’s so self-assured that the audience feels little suspense about her eventual fate.

And yet such criticism dissolves in the face of Black Book’s pulse-pounding tension, which wraps viewers in so much coiled suspense, that they’ll be forced to untangle themselves during the end credits. Verhoeven refreshingly exposes evil on both sides of the war, and perhaps the film’s most unforgettably nauseating image involves the abuse Houten takes from liberated members of the Alliance. The labyrinthine plot never once becomes confusing, and often relies on plot developments so coincidental, the audience can’t help but grin. Though no matter how much of a great time one has watching this film, one can’t help feeling a little guilty about it afterward. Verhoeven insists to the keep the audience on the edge of their seats, yet fails to move them in a way that is genuinely emotional. Black Book is a beautiful specimen to behold, yet one is left wondering if there truly is a heart beating beneath its scintillating surface.

Rating: **** (out of *****)