Lauren Henderson...
Black Book
by Paul Verhoeven
If I were doing a one-line review of this movie, all I would have to say would be: "This is a movie about the Dutch resistance by Paul Verhoeven", and you'd expect big action set-pieces, occasional gruesome and unexpected violence, and a heroine who shows us her pubes. And you would not be disappointed.
However, I was naïve enough to believe the considerable hype going round the UK about this one. It was a huge return to form for Verhoeven… the heroine was treated very sympathetically… after his vulgar excesses in Hollywood how nice to see him treating a serious subject seriously, etc etc. I happen actually to like his vulgar excesses in Hollywood very much indeed, and think they're more suited to a crackingly clever film about male power like SHOWGIRLS than a Resistance movie, where the taste level was all over the place. Making the heroine flash her tits constantly is understandable if she's a wannabe Vegas dancer. When she's a plucky Jewish resistance heroine who has seen her family slaughtered and is struggling womanfully to betray her lover for the good of the country - well, gratuitous doesn't even begin to cover it. Honestly, that poor girl (Carice Van Houten, she deserves that I write her name out) did a great acting job, and at least her breasts are small and elegant, thus taking down the vulgarity a notch. But he just can't help himself. I swear to God, if Paul Verhoeven had directed THE QUEEN, he'd have had Helen Mirren's tits out every second shot.
Like the infinitely superior Jean-Paul Melville film about the French resistance, Army of Shadows, Black Book does convey the insecurity of that terrible period, the way fortunes can change from one moment to the next: rather than orchestrating a clear, successful plot, its protagonists are struggling just to survive as the betrayals and counter-betrayals twist and turn, never knowing who to trust or what the outcome of any given situation will be. However, Verhoeven's repeated pulling out of the rug from beneath our feet is more frenetic than anything else: by the end, I felt that he was doing it just to keep the crazy momentum of the plot going, rather than as a genuine attempt to convey the terrible uncertainty and confusion of working as a double agent. It's rarely boring - it's hard for a Paul Verhoeven film to be boring! - but it does overload you and by the end I was getting all those big chunky Dutch blokes confused with each other (they really do mostly look alike!) and not working out who was betraying whom this time, or caring much either. I saw the two big twists coming a mile off - for any crime or thriller fan, they were heavily signalled. Still, the last act of revenge was fabulously enjoyable and twisted in good old Verhoeven style.
Oh yes, and poor old Carice needs to show us her pubes cos she's posing as an Aryan chick and dyes her collar and cuffs to pass for a natural blonde. O - kayyy. Like there aren't a ton of dark-haired Dutch people! Like every single Aryan Dutch man in the movie doesn't have light to dark-brown hair! When Carice's Nazi lover first sees her roots (which no-one seems to have thought of) he actually says, "Are you a Jew?" I mean, COME ON. To which, instead of her saying sensibly, "Of course not, darling, I am just a great admirer of the blonde actress Jean Harlow and think being blonde suits me, don't you, you sexy big Nazi?" she says "Yes. So what?" This, from a woman who we've already seen acting smart as smart to avoid being caught carrying an illegal radio transmitter. A woman that clever would have worked out what to say aeons in advance and have a snappy answer ready for whenever Mr Nazi spotted her roots. It was a lazy way of showing that Mr Nazi had a bit of a heart (or, in my opinion, just didn't care that much where his free sex was coming from).
And on that subject - Mr Nazi, not free sex - both my mum and my sister, with whom I saw the film, came out oohing and aahing over him. Appalling behaviour from two Jewish ladies! I was really shocked! He wasn't even that good-looking - check it out to the left if you don't believe me…
Bit lardy, right? I mean, it's not Gregory Peck or Orlando Bloom or Sean Bean playing a Nazi! That movie rotted their brains. It's neither one thing or another. Watch Army of Shadows, if you fancy a Resistance movie - or Showgirls, Basic Instinct or Starship Troopers if you want full-on Verhoeven.
(I did like the bit in Israel though. Nice to see someone fully acknowledging the connection between the Second World War and the reason for Israel's existence. Got to give the guy points for that.)