Looks brilliant and i do believe it is coming out with english subtitles.
http://www.zwartboekdefilm.nl/
Apologies if this has been posted before.
That’s a Dutch film isn’t it. Looks interesting. Dutch director Paul Verhoeven’s previous films also include Basic Instinct and Starship Trooper.
I’ve seen it, it’s very good. A few of the plot twists are incredibly unexpected. I have no idea when the subtitled version is coming out though. That
That’s a Dutch film isn’t it. Looks interesting. Dutch director Paul Verhoeven’s previous films also include Basic Instinct and Starship Trooper.
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Just rented this movie from “Blockbuster” and watched it last night. Very suspenseful with plenty of plot twists as well. In Dutch with English subtitles.
Ive seen it and thought it was very bad.
Predictable unrealistic story that leaves us with lots of questions and also many historical mistakes.
Can you expand on your above posta bit matey? What questions does it leave us with and what are the inacurracies?
I’ve seen it in sneak preview half a year ago and I kinda liked it (mostly because of Carice :mrgreen:). But you should see it as what it is, Entertainment. Some sex, some action and a rather typical thriller plot losely based on historical events. After all it’s a Verhoeven movie (not too obvious but still visible), if you know what to expect from him one can enjoy the movie.
First of all, the netherlands during the occupation is the subject im obsessed with, just like some of you will be annoyed by the wrong uniform in a movie, I am annoyed with civilian things that arent authentic.
I didnt look for mistakes at first, when the movie is really good and the story is very exciting, you can sort of forgive the mistakes, authentic details are important but they on themself cant ruin a movie.
But very, very soon I discovered that the story just isnt very good, its a bit of a mess.
Even people who dont know about historical details were sort of confused and started wondering things about the plot.
Movie technically and story wise I already didnt like the movie.
For instance, we are watching a young jewish girl in hiding enjoying herself reading a book in the sun somewere in the countryside, a sailor (does she know him?) comes up to her as she is half naked playing a record and they kiss.
Then a bomb falls on the house where she was living, the family (with a lot of children) are probably dead.
She doesnt seem to care.
The hero isnt very nice and shes a bit of a slut, apologies for using such rude language.
So besides all the historical mistakes the character is one I dont like already.
She is also a very modern, free spirit.
She reminds me more of 1960s girls then 1940s girls, of course there were girls like that during ww2 but somehow the attitude and her behaviour just clashes with the whole scene.
The story itself is unbelievable, its a bit of a mess, its predictable and too often i just dont belief what is going on.
Verhoeven (the writer-director) is still stuck in the 1960s, there is a lot of sex, nudity, feaces, swearing and women being really hip and groovy in the movie.
Also he feels hes being really rebbellious and confrontational when he dares to suggest not everybody in the resistance was 100% okay and not all germans were evil… thats old news to most Dutch because we have a huge minority complex since de war so thats all we’ve been talking about for the last 50 years, telling ourselves our resistance wasnt worth everything, all the dutch were collaborators and we all pushed the jews into the camps… all rubbish.
But in stead of confronting people with those ideas, verhoeven confronts them with ideas they had in the 60’s.
He makes ww2 and its history into a action movie, straight from hollywood, he tries to put in history and thought provocing, provocotive storylines but when he fails he shouts he wasnt making a documentatry…
And thats just the technical bit!
Now onwards to the historical bit…
First of all, details shouldnt get in the way of a good story, alas with this movie the story is bad and the bad details too big to ignore.
I didnt look at the military stuff, its not my speciality.
I looked at the civilian bit and the history of the occupation.
The setting was very important and there the biggest mistakes were made.
We are told that the story takes place a few months after the battle for Arnhem, so its 1945.
The hungerwinter, no electricity, no gas, no transport, no carbage collecting, mess everywhere.
The worst moment of ww2 for the Dutch, people were dying in the streets, the official ration at one time was lower then that in Stalingrad!
I think its extremely important to show this, not talking about the details but the overall atmosphere.
The public should learn and remember that life wasnt fun in those days.
But in the movie it seems 1942 or something.
There are bicycles everywere… with real nice looking tires!
Tires were very hard to get since 1940, people used wooden tires or no tires at all and still you ran the risk of having your bike confiscated or stolen as they were worth a fortune on the black market.
During a resistance attack they use a taxi… taxis didnt run since 1940, there were hardly any cars around but especially taxis would stand out.
When it supposed to be busy its quiet and vise versa.
For instance, the streets near a SD HQ are crowded after dark but there is not a person in sight when they have a long firefight in the middle of town in the middle of the day…
The story takes place in a city where garbage is not taken away but the streets are clean, trains havent been running since sept 44, yet we have a lovely trainscene, the RAF uses a bomber to drop a few parcels near a factory with a scary long chimney… thats silly!
And also easy to locate for the enemy!
They have little trouble walking in and out of the SD HQ, the main character sleeps with a high ranking SD man.
He is very nice but not once is it mentioned in the story what kind of work a SD man is responsible for when he isnt sleeping with our hero…
But sleeping with him apperantly is enough to get a job and then to have access to lots of secret files.
They place a microphone behind a painting and now the resistance listens to the SD in their main office…
How does it work?
Do they have a transmitter?
Do they use a phoneline?
In a city where the phone is hardly working?
I really am angry about them showing the Hungerwinter as a not so bad time, I know thats not what the story was about but it was the setting for the story and here its not a subject you can just briefly mention as it would influence everyone, the actions, the thoughts, everything.
They have just one scene that does it justice a bit; children eating out of trashcans.
But besides that they forget it everywhere else.
The only really good thing about the movie is the setdressing, great looking streets, shops, rooms.
There are countless other mistakes, too many to mention.
The resistance acts as the resistance would have never acted, women and men are (mis)treated equally, there is a strange story of germans shooting jews who for some reason risk it all weeks before the war ends just to get to the allies a bit quicker… something downed pilots wouldnt even do.
Besides in 1945 there are a million other, easier ways to get money then using a ship and lots of your men to kill rich jews.
Something they could get into trouble with, even if you are SD there is always someone above them who could get rid of them for doing something like that.
This eventually happens but why did they run the risk to begin with?
Aaaaaaaaaah so much just doesnt make sense!
The biggest mistake they made is get the era wrong, they are showing a 2007 story with people in old clothes, not a 1945 story.
They dont understand 1945 people, the way people behaved, what it was like to live back then, etc.
Its a modern story.
No problem if this movie was made in hollywood by someone who doesnt know much about the subject, but Verhoeven made a good ww2 movie before and he lived trough the hungerwinter as a child!
But all he seems to have been touched by back then was the treatment of those poor nazis and collaborators…
Years ago Paul verhoeven made ‘Soldier of Orange’, also with plenty of mistakes, but a much much better plot (based on fact, real beliavable facts, not the ‘facts’ used for Black Book) en a much better understanding of the era.
If you want to see a good movie on the netherlands during the war, watch that one.