"Black Book"

Over the past decade or even longer, there have been a slew of war movies. Different wars, different angles, different sides, but they all have some things in common that are always hard to watch. Suffering, sadness, and death. “Black Book,” is another helping of this, but along the lines of a “Grey zone,” Schindlers List,” or “The Pianist.”

The Main character in this movie Ellis De Vries (played by Carice Van Houten) is an innocent young Jewish woman. She and her family living in Belgium, are desperately trying to avoid the German occupied Holland and move to some place safe. In doing so, her family along with many others are betrayed, killed, and then robbed of all the possessions, money, and treasure they were carrying with them. Ellis manages to escape the massacre.

Now homeless and her family dead she joins up with the local resistance group and agrees to infiltrate the local Gestapo, and even go as far as to sleep with the enemy in order to gain their trust. Along the way Ellis actually becomes attached to the head Gestapo agent. Ellis does her job well, and goes to work for the group and the cloak and dagger begins. There are many twists and turns as the plot of the movie unfolds. Some are obvious, others are a surprise which makes things more interesting as you're watching the film.

I applaud Director Paul Verhoeven for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I liked the fact he kept the movie spoken in German. It just gave the script a more real feeling to it. Lets be honest, no one really likes movies that are subtitled, but this needed to be. I also applaud Paul for the over look and feel to the movie. The set designs, the filming locations, the pageantry, lighting, and costumes all were fantastic. “The Look” as I have come to call it, is the sense that the movie is filmed in such a way that it simply sucks you in, and makes you a part of the action. This movie does that very well.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this DVD preview, there have been so many war movies done that I don’t even want to try and count them. As every angle and every war has been done, and re-done, it’s hard to believe that another war movie could be made at the quality, and originality that this script provides. This is a fresh look into the terror that all Jews faced during WW2, and the lengths they would all go to try and survive as Hitler’s “Final Solution” was being implemented. There is great acting between all the characters, and there are just too many to list. Oh I also wanted to give high praise to the musical director of Black Book. The entire musical score was genius. I forget some times how much better a movie is with the right music going in the background.

My rating for this movie is a solid 8.00 out of 10.00