Zwartboek (2006)

'Black Book' is the work of Paul Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman. The word goes they worked for more then twenty years to what became a description of the essence of the Second World war in Holland. For example the main performer, Carice van Houten, builds a mixture of Anne Frank, Dora Paulsen, Kitty van der Have and Ans van Dijk. (for a review covering the historical aspect check here) The film reminds me of a discussion about realism: Dostoyevsky believed he was a ' higher realist' because he would try to get to the essence of the real and not necessarily describe everyday events. Here too the story is stylized and as if abstract but pressures successfully the reality it points to. The movie shows quality all over and the big budget could be part of the explanation. On the other hand, a big budget was never enough for a good movie and this one is good. Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Halina Reijn, Derek de Lint, Waldemar Kobus all do a clean job, the image is sparkling, the sound is crystal. The characters (like Ronnie) sometimes appear to be one sided and superficial but it looks as if they are pushed by the events to be depthless and they struggle in their own trimmed features. The movie is plot driven and that gives it a Hollywood scent but its structure reminds me more of David Lynch because of the heavy clarity; things appear to be going on at several levels all the time and the action springs from various depths creating a multi layered web that is both easy to follow and difficult to analyze. Nice.