S M G
S M G
Paul Verhoeven is often described as a one man Dutch Film Industry. Better known to English speaking audiences as the director of Total Recall, Robocop and Basic Instinct, and more infamously Showgirls, he is know for explicit violence and / or sexual content, but always with a strong social satire. Starship Troopers being a case in point. His early career in The Netherlands brought him success with a series of movies starring Rutger Hauer – Soldier of Orange being the most famous, culminating in a horror movie “The Fourth Man” with Jeroen Krabb. It was only after these movies he headed to Hollywood in 1983. However after 20 years of working in the US, he decided to return to the Dutch movie scene, bringing big budget Hollywood ethos and production values with him. The result was this movie – Black Book (Zwartboek), in 2006.
Arising out of research done for the making of Soldier of Orange, and written with the same screenwriter, this story is an amalgamation of several real life stories, and follows the story of a young Jewish woman who becomes a spy for the allies after tragic events shatter her pre-war idyll. Verhoeven liked to contrast the movie to Hollywood by asserting that none of the characters were black and white, giving the movie a theme of moral relativism rather than starkly contrasting goodies and baddies.
At the time of release, it was the most expensive film production attempted in The Netherlands, with finance coming from Belgium, Germany and Britain as well as Holland. The final budget was €18,000,000. Shooting took place mostly in the Hague, but also in a few other Dutch cities as well as a brief section in Israel.
Critics were overall positive, but with a few notable exceptions. The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw announced it was crass, vulgar and flatulent, giving it one star. However, Rotten tomatoes shows a 77% positive rating. Some praised the moving away from male testosterone archetype hero, but one literary critic pointed out that "The reality of 1940–1945 as portrayed in Black Book compared to reality is like the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas compared to the original in Paris." Nonetheless, TIME magazine's Richard Schickel named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #5, calling it a "dark, richly mounted film".
Trivia
Most actors speak more than one language in the film. Carice van Houten speaks four languages fluently in the course of the film: Hebrew in the scenes in Israel, German with Nazi soldiers, English with Canadian army personnel, and Dutch for the majority of the film.
When principal photography took longer than anticipated, Carice van Houten had to return to the production, while she was already scheduled to appear in a stage play. The theater company successfully sued Zwartboek's production company Fu Works for the delay of several months that was caused by Van Houten's absence.
Carice van Houten did all her own singing for the movie.
Crew members allegedly had to wait for over a year to get their money, because the production company ran out of money before completion.
The first Paul Verhoeven movie in 23 years to feature a full frontal nude man. This was quite commonplace in Verhoeven's Dutch films, but due to the movie rating system being much more strict in the USA, the practice was abandoned.
© Stephen's Movie Guide
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