Vulgarian invasions

By Jason Anderson
BLACK BOOK ****

Starring Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch. Written by Gerard Soeteman, Paul Verhoeven. Directed by Paul Verhoeven. (14A) 145 min. Opens April 27.

Genius or vulgarian? Paul Verhoeven has always blurred the line between the two. The Dutch director's films are often luridly sensationalistic yet also more sophisticated and more deeply considered than is suggested by their most infamous provocations, be it the male rape scene in Spetters, Sharon Stone's crotch flash in Basic Instinct or pretty much every second of Showgirls.

Love him or hate him, there's no disputing that Hollywood has been a less interesting place in the seven years since he made Hollow Man. Having enjoyed great freedom on American projects like Robocop and Starship Troopers, he found himself contending with too much studio interference on the last one. Feeling that “I could not fully express myself” – as the 68-year-old filmmaker says in a recent phone interview from his office in Los Angeles – he returned to his homeland to make his first Dutch-language film since 1983.

Bold, exciting and equipped with a pitch-black view of human nature, Verhoeven's latest is a WWII espionage thriller about Rachel (Carice van Houten), a Jewish singer whose covert activities on behalf of the Dutch Resistance include romancing Müntze (The Lives of Others' Sebastian Koch), the German officer in charge of Nazi-occupied Holland. Thanks to Black Book, Verhoeven's list of provocations now includes presenting a Nazi as a romantic lead and suggesting the Resistance was rife with anti-Semites and traitors. It's a seemingly controversial view but one that's historically accurate. Even so, it's hard to believe that any American studio, given the current political climate, would have allowed Verhoeven to make a film as steeped in moral ambiguities as Black Book.

“I fully agree,” says Verhoeven. “In America, there is a government that is fundamentalist Christian and neo-conservative. The Bush dogma that the enemy is the devil and there's no humanity to the devil has been very prevalent in the last six years. In Black Book, there is an acceptance of the idea that the enemy might be a human person, too, and that compassion for the enemy is not the thing that should be avoided at any cost. I don't believe so much in that black-and-white view of humanity – I think all human beings are a mixture of good and bad. Calling your enemy the devil means you don't have to think about them any more.”

That the characters and situations in Black Book are based on real people and events gives it an additional charge. Verhoeven and screenwriter Gerard Soeteman first found the seed of the story in the late '70s when doing research for their previous WWII film Soldier of Orange. Materials they found in the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation indicated how the Resistance secretly negotiated with the head German officer (Müntze in the movie, Münt in reality), sometimes offering rare stamps and ceasefires in exchange for prisoners.

“Münt was certainly ‘negotiating with the enemy,' as it's called in the movie by the German general,” says Verhoeven. “He was trying to make deals and partially succeeded in making deals with the Resistance so that they would stop sniping at German officers and soldiers.”

The Resistance fighters of Black Book also offer Rachel, who disguises herself by dying her hair blond. (This being a Verhoeven movie, we witness her making sure the carpet matches the drapes.) Yet the character – also based on several real women – is nobody's fool. Intelligent and intrepid, she's a wildly dynamic figure and it's a dispiriting comment on the state of female characters in the movies that the most vivid and complex heroine in recent memory was created by the director of Showgirls.

Verhoeven has often used female characters as protagonists or as figures of equal prominence to males, “although I think this is probably the most sympathetic female character that I've ever visualized,” he says. “If you look at Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct, she is charming and sexual, but she is also completely diabolical. And the girls in Spetters and Showgirls are completely opportunistic. In this case, we have a heroine who is not opportunistic.”

The director also attributes the success of the character and of the film (it's the most successful Dutch production ever) to the talents of his lead. “I strongly feel that without Carice van Houten, this would never have been possible,” he says. “She brought so much to the movie that she glues everything together. Even when she goes into situations when you would perhaps morally question her, she makes you willing to follow her. I'm extremely grateful that this actress existed and was born in Holland.”

Van Houten sets a high standard for Milla Jovovich, who's attached to star in Verhoeven's next European production, an adaptation of Boris Akunin's period Russian mystery novel Azazel (a.k.a. The Winter Queen). The director admits it's always a challenge to finance a film outside the Hollywood system but the freedom is worth it. As he says, “Sometimes when you look back at a movie, like I did with Hollow Man, you think, ‘Why did I do that?' In this case, it's very clear why I did it.”