Black Book (film)

Black Book Dutch Zwartboek is a 2006 Dutch World War II thriller film cowritten and directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, and Halina Reijn. The film, credited as based on several true events and characters, is about a young Jewish woman in the Netherlands who becomes a spy for the resistance during World War II after tragedy befalls her in an encounter with the Nazis. The film had its world premiere onSeptember 2006 at the Venice Film Festival and its public release onSeptember 2006 in the Netherlands. It is Verhoevens first film made in the Netherlands since The Fourth Man, made in 1983 before moving to the United States.

In 1944, Rachel Stein, a DutchJewish singer who had lived in Berlin before the war, is hiding from the Nazi regime in the occupied Netherlands. When the farmhouse where she had been hiding is accidentally destroyed by an American bomber, Rachel manages to escape the area thanks to a local man, Rob, and visits a lawyer named Smaal, who provides her with some of her fathers money so that she can flee, helped by a man named Van Gein. Rachel and Rob are reunited with her family and try to flee by boat through the Biesbosch with other Jews from the Nazioccupied part of the Netherlands to the liberated southern part of the country. However, it turns out to be a trap. They are ambushed on the river by members of the German SS, who kill them and rob the bodies of their cash and other valuables. Rachel alone survives, but she does not manage to escape from occupied territory.Using a nonJewish alias, Ellis de Vries, Rachel becomes involved with a Dutch resistance group in the Hague, under the leadership of Gerben Kuipers and working closely with a doctor in the Resistance, Hans Akkermans. Smaal is in touch with this Resistance cell. When Kuipers son and other members of the Resistance are captured, Ellis agrees to help by seducing local SD commander Hauptsturmfhrer Ludwig Mntze, bleaching all of her hair blonde. Mntze invites her to a party at the local SD headquarters, and there, Ellis recognises Obersturmfhrer Gnther Franken, Mntzes brutal deputy, as the SS officer who oversaw the massacre of her refugee party. She obtains a job as a secretary at the SD headquarters while also falling in love with Mntze, who, in contrast to Franken, is not abusive or sadistic. He realises that her hair is bleached and she is a Jew, but does not care. She also becomes friends with her Dutch colleague Ronnie, who collaborates with the Germans, working for them, being sexually available to them particularly Franken, and accepting stolen gifts from them. ........

Source: Wikipedia