Black Book

What a crass, vulgar, perverse and offensive film it is! Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director behind such lurid camp classics like Basic Instinct and Showgirls, returns to his home country after a long time but keeps his sensibilities intact, even when the subject is as serious as the second world war and persecution of Jews. I guess, one could have praised the irreverence that he shows here as something refreshing, had there been any evidence of seriousness of intent, but without that it is just crass and in bad-taste, and I mean bad bad-taste.

The story is about how a Jewish girl named Rachel (played with some really uncommon energy and gusto by someone called Clarice van Houten) survives the Nazi occupation by joining the resistance and spying against the Nazis. The title in the beginning claims that it is based on "real events" but the treatment makes it look like some third-grade pulp fiction, what with one jaw-droppingly weird sequence after another. In one Rachel mistakes the gun of the Nazi she has been sleeping with (a "good" and "sensitive" Nazi) with his erection. In another she dyes her pubic hair blonde, of course shown in close-up! There are many other scenes which are so ridiculous and so crass that they are neither funny nor erotic. To give the film some semblance of moral complexity the good Nazi mentioned above is counterbalanced by vile and scheming resistance fighters. Everybody is shit, you see! That's the profound moral lesson of the film. But yes overall it is very efficiently made. If you can leave your scruples at home, you might even be entertained. Otherwise irredeemably worthless in my opinion. Strictly for connoisseurs of bad-taste. jim hoberman seems to like it a little. other reviews here.