Paul Verhoeven’s tale of injustice, romance, duplicity and
war is one of just a handful of films I’ve watched twice this year. I saw it
first in early January and was blown away by the story and acting and jumped at
the chance to watch it for a second time. Carice van Houten, best known to
English speaking audiences as fiery Priestess Melisandre in Game of Thrones plays a young Jewish
woman in hiding from the Nazis in the Dutch countryside towards the end of the
Second World War. After her hiding place is destroyed and following a traumatic
encounter with the Germans she joins the Dutch resistance, going undercover
inside the German Headquarters in The
Hague where she agrees to seduce the local commander
(Sebastian Koch - The Lives of Others).
Black Book is a
fantastic film which is full of moral ambiguity set in a time of deep mistrust
and hardship. One of the greatest things about it is that very few characters
can be described as good or bad. The vast majority of the large cast of
characters lie in a grey area somewhere in between and I think this adds
reality to the film. The film bravely suggests that not all Nazis were bad and
that not every resistance fighter was good or moral. There is a great deal of
anti-Semitism even amongst the so called good guys. It’s an interesting idea
which works incredibly well and helps to keep the viewer on their toes.
