Tonights movie was Zwartboek (yup, I’m watching a stack of movies with Petra away). Its a movie that I had heard lots about, naturally because it’s Dutch. Set at the end of World War II, it follows a Jewish women (Rachel Stein / Ellis de Vries) who has managed to hide from the Nazis until almost the very end. Losing her hide out, and then her family, she finds herself at the centre of the Dutch Resistance.
It is a really good movie, one of those that starts well, perhaps goes on a little too long, but then picks up for a great finish. The plot of the movie is one you have seen before, but there are eventually enough twists to keep you guessing right through.
I was a little disturbed about the humanisation of the character Müntze, the Captain of the SD (intelligence service of the SS), whom I’m sure was responsible for his share of occupier inflicted misery. Ellis falls in love with him while spying for the resistance, possible of course, but for me a little shallow and a bit of a distraction. He eventually dies in a way that makes you feel sorry for him, though I think justice would have caught up with him eventually.
The final final scene is also interesting, finishing in Israel in 1956, where there are Israeli soldiers surrounding the Kibbutz she now lives in. Gunfire and explosions are going off in the background. I’m not sure what the intention of this finale was, whether we are meant to feel sorry for her for not being able to escape war, of if we are to feel sorry for the region thrust into it as a result of European conflict. I think it was the former, but not for me.
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