Tuesday, June 17, 2008
the "Black Book", Zwartboek
Today I managed to catch a Picturehouse special movie the "Black Book" (Zwartboek in Dutch), and I gave it 4 out of 5 stars!
You know how hard it is to pry out a 4/5 star rating for a movie from me. But this WW2 flick is based on true events, and it is actually very touching. I've watched many WW2 movies in my time, but this is another perspective that I've not seen before. It's a MUST-WATCH.
Black Book (Dutch: Zwartboek) is a 2006 Second World War film directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, and Halina Reijn. The story is about a young Jewish woman in the Netherlands who becomes a spy for the resistance during World War II, when tragedy befalls her after an encounter with the Nazis. The film had its world premiere on September 1, 2006 at the Venice Film Festival and its public release on September 14, 2006 in the Netherlands.
The movie centers around this Jewish girl Rachel Stein, who renamed herself Ellis De Fries to pass off as a German. It talks about her courage, her mental strength, her determination and resolve.
It's actually heartbreaking, she had to go through so many sacrifices, sacrificing her friends, her dignity, her self-respect and all the hardship and betrayals she went through.. Can you imagine sleeping with the man who killed your family?
A lesser person would have crumbled. I admit, I would have crumbled myself if I was in her position, I would have just wanted to kill all the damn Nazis. This character Rachel Stein aka Ellis De Fries went through all sorts of hell, but she's one tough nut.
Much of the situations she got into, she managed to survive by pure luck. But she's smart too, conversant and fluent in up to 3 languages. (German, English and Dutch, possibly other languages too) to be able to masquerade as a German and spy on them, later the Germans found out that she was a spy and made it look that she betrayed her own people!
She escaped and went into hiding, can you imagine you fearing liberation and branded as a spy when the Allies took over?
This movie is a special Picturehouse viewing, only imported foreign movies are shown and you can only view it at Cathay towers. Catch it while it's still airing!
Picture house details: Here.
You may view a preview Here.
