Zwartboek (2006)

Black Book (Dutch: Zwartboek) is a 2006 war drama thriller film co-written and directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Carice va...

Black Book (Dutch: Zwartboek) is a 2006 war drama thriller film co-written and directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman and Halina Reijn. The film, credited as based on several true events and characters, is about a young Jewish woman in the Netherlands who becomes a spy for the resistance during World War II after tragedy befalls her in an encounter with the Nazis.

The film had its world premiere on 1 September 2006 at the Venice Film Festival and its public release on 14 September 2006 in the Netherlands. It is the first film that Verhoeven made in the Netherlands since The Fourth Man, made in 1983 before he moved to the United States.{full_page}

The press in the Netherlands was positive; with three Golden Calves, Black Book won the most awards at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2006. The international press responded positively, as well, especially to the performance of Van Houten. It was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language, and was the Dutch submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2007, but was not nominated.

It was three times more expensive than any Dutch film ever made, and also the Netherlands' most commercially successful, with the country's highest box-office gross of 2006. In 2008, the Dutch public voted it the best Dutch film ever.

In 1944, Dutch-Jewish singer Rachel Stein is hiding from the Nazi regime in the occupied Netherlands. When the farmhouse where she had been hiding in was destroyed by an Allied bomber, she goes to see a lawyer named Smaal, who had been helping her family. He arranges for her to escape to the liberated southern part of the country. Aided by a man named Van Gein, Rachel is reunited with her family and boards a boat that is to take them and other refugees to the south. However, they are ambushed on the river by members of the German SS, who kill them and rob the bodies of valuables. Rachel alone survives, but does not manage to escape from occupied territory.

Using a non-Jewish alias, Ellis de Vries, Rachel becomes involved with a Dutch resistance group in the Hague, under the leadership of Gerben Kuipers and working closely with a doctor, Hans Akkermans. Smaal is in touch with this Resistance cell. When Kuipers's son and other members of the Resistance are captured, Ellis agrees to help by seducing local SD commander Hauptsturmführer Ludwig Müntze.

At a party at the local SD headquarters, Ellis recognises Obersturmführer Günther Franken, Müntze's brutal deputy, as the officer who had overseen the massacre of refugees on the boat. She obtains a job as a secretary at the SD headquarters while also falling in love with Müntze who, in contrast to Franken, is not abusive or sadistic. He realises that she is a Jew, but does not care.

Thanks to a hidden microphone that Ellis plants in Franken's office, the Resistance realises that Van Gein is the traitor who betrayed Rachel, her family, and the other Jews to the SS. Against Kuipers's orders, Akkermans decides to abduct Van Gein to expose him. Their attempt goes wrong, and Van Gein is killed. Franken responds by planning to kill 40 hostages, including most of the plotters, but Müntze, who realises the war is lost and has been negotiating with the Resistance, countermands the order.

Müntze forces Ellis to tell him her story. On her evidence, he confronts Franken with a superior officer, Obergruppenführer Käutner, who orders Franken to open his safe, expecting to find the valuables stolen from the Jews he had killed, this being a capital offence. However, the safe contains no valuables, and Franken then tells Käutner that Müntze has been negotiating with Dutch resistance "terrorists" for a truce.

Müntze is imprisoned and condemned to death. The Resistance plots to rescue their imprisoned members; Ellis agrees to cooperate only on the condition that they also free Müntze. The plan is betrayed, and the would-be rescuers find the prisoners' cells filled with German troops. Only Akkermans and one other man manage to flee.

Ellis is subsequently arrested and taken to Franken's office. He knows about her and the bug and, knowing that the Resistance is listening in, he stages a confrontation to make them believe that Ellis is the Nazi collaborator, responsible for the failure of the rescue. Kuipers and his companions swear to make her pay for her treason. Ronnie, a Dutch woman working at the SD headquarters to whom Ellis had confided her role in the Resistance, helps her and Müntze escape.

When the country is liberated by the Allies, Franken attempts to escape by boat, but is killed by Akkermans, who takes the Jewish loot. Suspecting Smaal is the traitor, Müntze and Ellis return to confront him. Smaal states that the identity of the traitor is evidenced by his 'black book', in which he had detailed all his dealings with Jews. However, he refuses to discuss further, wanting to go to the Canadian authorities.

When they are about to leave, Smaal and his wife are killed by an unknown assailant. Müntze chases him into the street, only to be recognised by the Dutch crowd and arrested by soldiers from the Canadian Army. The Dutch also recognise Ellis and arrest her as a collaborator, but not before she grabs the black book. Müntze is brought before the ranking Canadian officers and finds that Käutner is helping to keep order among the defeated German forces. Käutner convinces a Canadian colonel that under military law, the defeated German military retains the right to punish its own soldiers. Due to the previously issued death warrant, Müntze is executed by a firing squad.

Ellis is imprisoned with other accused collaborators, and humiliated and tortured by the violently anti-Nazi volunteer jailers, but rescued by Akkermans, who is now a colonel in the Dutch Army. Akkermans brings her to his medical office, and says that he killed Franken when the Nazi tried to escape. He shows her the valuables stolen from Jewish victims. When informed about Müntze's fate, Ellis goes into shock, and Akkermans administers a tranquilliser which is in fact an overdose of insulin. Ellis, feeling dizzy, sees the bottle of insulin and survives by quickly eating a bar of chocolate.

She realises then that Akkermans is the traitor who had collaborated with Franken and had killed the Smaals. While Akkermans is distracted, waving to a crowd that cheers him, she jumps from the balcony into the crowd below, and runs away. He tries to follow, but is blocked by the crowd.

Ellis proves her innocence to Canadian military intelligence and to the former Resistance leader Gerben Kuipers by means of Smaal's black book, which lists how many Jews had been taken to Akkermans for medical help just prior to their murders. Together, Ellis and Kuipers intercept the fleeing Akkermans, who is hiding in a coffin in a hearse with the stolen money, gold, and jewels. They beat down the driver, and while Kuipers drives the hearse, Ellis screws down the coffin's secret air vents. They drive to Hollands Diep where the original SS trap had been sprung, and wait until Akkermans suffocates. Ellis and Kuipers wonder what to do with the stolen money and jewels.

The scene changes to Israel in 1956, reprising the opening scenes, and shows Rachel meeting her husband and their two children, and walking back into Kibbutz Stein, with a sign at the gate announcing that it was funded with recovered money from Jews killed during the war. In the final scene, the tranquility of Rachel and her family is interrupted by explosions heard in the distance; the siren announces an air attack and Israeli soldiers position themselves at the front of the kibbutz.

Cast

Carice van Houten as Rachel Stein, alias Ellis de Vries

Sebastian Koch as Ludwig Müntze (SS-Hauptsturmführer)

Thom Hoffman as Hans Akkermans

Halina Reijn as Ronnie

Waldemar Kobus as Günther Franken (SS-Obersturmführer)

Derek de Lint as Gerben Kuipers

Christian Berkel as General (SS-Obergruppenführer)

Dolf de Vries as Mr. Smaal, attorney who keeps the black book

Peter Blok as Mr. Van Gein, policeman who betrays those trying to leave occupied territory

Michiel Huisman as Rob, sailor who helps Rachel Stein

Frank Lammers as Kees, member of the resistance group

Matthias Schoenaerts as Joop, member of the resistance group Johnny de Mol as Theo, devout Christian and member of the resistance group

Xander Straat as Maarten, member of the resistance group

After 20 years of filmmaking in the United States, Verhoeven returned to his homeland, the Netherlands, for the making of Black Book. The story was written by Verhoeven and screenwriter Gerard Soeteman, with whom he made successful films such as Turkish Delight (1973) and Soldier of Orange (1977). The two men had been working on the script for fifteen years, but they solved their story problems in the early 2000s by changing the main character from male to female. According to Verhoeven, Black Book was born out of elements that did not fit in any of his earlier movies, and it can be seen as a supplement to his earlier film about World War II Soldier of Orange

Black Book is not a true story, unlike Soldier of Orange, but Verhoeven states that many of the events are true. As in the film, the German headquarters were in the Hague. In 1944 many Jews that tried to cross to liberated parts of the southern Netherlands were entrapped by Dutch policemen. As in the film, crossing attempts took place in the Biesbosch. Events are related to the life of Verhoeven, who was born in 1938 and grew up in the Hague during the Second World War.The execution of Müntze by German firing squad after the war had ended echoes the notorious May 1945 German deserter execution incident.