Black Book

Black Book (***1/2)
(Zwartboek)

It's been about a week and a half now since I saw this, so it's not completely fresh in my mind, but this is in World War II era espionage-type triller directed by Paul Verhoeven, aka the dude who made Robocop. All of the characters speak their native languages, and so the film is subtitled with English, Dutch, German, and Hebrew all being spoken.

The film's protagonist is Rachel Stein, a Jewish woman hiding out in the countryside in the Netherlands during German occupation. She decides to flee on a boat which takes passengers to liberated territory under cover of darkness. The boat, however, is quickly discovered by a German patrol boat and its passengers are gunned down, with only Rachel escaping. The remainder of the film follows Rachel as she attempts to aid the Dutch resistance movement, while also trying to discover what happened the night the boat was discovered. As part of this effort, she seduces a German S.S. officer and begins working at the local Gestapo headquarters under an assumed name.

The film is probably not the most profound movie ever made about World War II, but it does do an excellent job of painting a portrait of the Netherlands during and immediately after World War II, and makes a number of interesting social commentaries. But moreso than that, the film really works as a thriller, and Rachel's elaborate double agent role leads to a number of tremendously tense scenes. Black Book is easily worth a watch.