Black Book

While trying to escape from Nazi-occupied Holland, a young Jewish woman (Carice van Houten) and her family are ambushed and machine-gunned by the SS. Only she survives to join the Dutch resistance—where she becomes involved with a German officer and embroiled in a murky world of espionage and betrayal. The script by Gerard Soeteman and director Paul Verhoeven is an amalgam of some of the more ignoble stories of World War II, and the film is handsomely mounted with Verhoeven’s customary unsettling blend of sex and violence. It’s often disturbing and difficult to watch (especially the treatment of real and suspected collaborators at war’s end), but it’s compelling for its full 145-minute length, thanks mainly to van Houten’s fine performance as the heroine, vexed with injustice from friend and foe alike.