Black Book [Blu-ray] by Paul Verhoeven at DVD Hills.com

Black Book [Blu-ray]

Black Book [Blu-ray]
by Paul Verhoeven

List Price: ~~$9.52~~
Our Price: $9.48
You Save: $10.47 (52%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.50 (click here)
Category: Blu-ray
See more Blu-ray details

Buy this Blu-ray movie at online store in your country
Canada

Blu-ray details

Actor: Carice van Houten, Halina Reijn, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Waldemar Kobus
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Brand: Sony
Writer: Paul Verhoeven
Writer: Gerard Soeteman
Blu-ray: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Hindi (Subtitled); Dutch (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 145 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: 2007-09-25
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Blu-ray Reviews of Black Book [Blu-ray]

Blu-ray Review: Sensational Sex and Violence; Left Me Emotionally and Intellectually Unmoved
Summary: 3 Stars

If you like seeing beautiful young women completely naked, and posed in compromising and perverse scenarios, then "Black Book" is for you.

Carice van Houten as Rachel / Ellis, a Jew who falls in love with a Gestapo chief, is fully exposed onscreen, and things are done to her body that I've not only not seen in movies before, I didn't think I'd ever see.

The sex only lets up in order to make way for graphic violence: a graphic scene of torture by water boarding, death by firing squad, and suffocation in a coffin whose lid is slowly screwed shut.

Director Paul Verhoeven was criticized for depicting a Jewish woman as the lover of a Gestapo chief, and for depicting the Dutch Resistance as less than uniformly heroic in its resistance. I expected to be shocked by these features, but I was not. I just felt bludgeoned into numbness by all the nudity and bloodletting.

I watched this movie on DVD, and after a while I just fast forwarded or closed my eyes through scenes I simply didn't want to watch: a woman exposing Ellis' body to the very Nazi who had murdered her parents, Ellis being drenched in bodily waste, yet another pile of corpses.

The production values are very high. The movie looks fantastic. If you are into sex, violence, and sensation, this is the movie for you.

I've read a lot of memoirs of the Nazi era, and met survivors. The Nazi era was not fun and games. I find watching movies about those days to be hard. When I do watch them, I want to feel that I've learned something, or felt something, that made watching the movie worthwhile.

I didn't learn anything about the WW II era while watching this movie, although I did learn something about exploitation. I was unmoved. Carice van Houten is lovely, but she plays her role as a tough cookie. Given that she is a sex toy in the film, I found it hard to relate to her humanity.

In the end, when Ellis / Rachel finally breaks down and begins to cry, one of her co-stars morphs into an eyebrow arching, mustache twirling parody of a Hitchcock villain, and tries to murder her by injection. That scene was so desperate for shock value I lost all faith in the film at that point.

Sebastian Koch, who played Ludwig Muntze, the kind and sensitive Gestapo chief with whom Rachel falls in love, left me completely unmoved. This is especially remarkable given how terrific Koch was in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's film "The Lives of Others."

Write your own review

More Black Book [Blu-ray] reviews:
1 2

Description of Black Book [Blu-ray]

In the darkest days of World War II, Jewish fugitives attempt to escape occupied Holland ? only to face a Nazi ambush. Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten) alone survives the attack and joins the Dutch Resistance to avenge her family. She soon confronts the ultimate test: she must infiltrate German headquarters by tempting Captain Ludwig Mÿntze (Sebastian Hoch). In the heat of passion, he uncovers her duplicity...but keeps her secret. Then Rachel's espionage reveals that a murderous traitor lurks within Resistance ranks. Unable to fully trust anyone, Rachel navigates a minefield of deception and becomes an enemy to both sides. Epic, passionate, breathtaking, Black Book relates an untold story of World War II where the distinctions between good and evil become blurred by the complexities of human nature.

As in Basic Instinct, a lovely lady takes the lead in Black Book, but this time Paul Verhoeven has more than cheap thrills in mind. Towards the end of WWII, Rachel Stein (the vibrant Carice von Houten), a Jewish singer, is living with a gentile family in the countryside. When Allied forces bomb the area, she's forced to flee. On her perilous journey to The Hague (Verhoeven's hometown), brunette Rachel joins the Resistance and changes her identity to blonde Ellis de Vries. Her next order of business: infiltrate Gestapo headquarters. Like many Verhoeven heroines, Rachel aces her assignment--and then some. First, she seduces the handsome Captain Müntze (Sebastian Koch, The Lives of Others), then she falls in love with him. Müntze, who returns her affection, isn't what he appears to be, but their relationship puts both at great risk. At this point, the filmmaker expertly kicks the proceedings into high gear, before concluding on a bittersweet note. Naturally, since this is a Verhoeven picture, there's plenty of wry humor and uninhibited sexuality along the way. Starting with 1985's Flesh + Blood, the Dutch director released an American movie every two to three years. After the poorly received Hollow Man, however, Verhoeven took a six-year break. Black Book, a return to his native Holland, was worth the wait. (He began work on the screenplay in the 1980s.) It works triple-time as a thriller, a tribute to Holland's Jewish population, and a poison pen letter to the Dutch opportunists who would attempt to sell them out. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Bestsellers in DVD

The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]
Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video

Wresting With God [VHS]
by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops: ~~$19.99~~

Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS] Image

Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]
Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops: ~~$44.00~~

Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS] Image

Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]
HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops: ~~$9.98~~

Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/Party Video [VHS] Image

Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]
HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video

Strike the Original Match [VHS]
New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image

Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]
JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99

Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008 Image

Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008
by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops: ~~$1,463.24~~

Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single User Image

Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single User
by Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops: ~~$1,463.24~~

Cost Accounting [VHS]
by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video

Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs

Run Lola Run [Blu-ray]
Sony; Release date: 2008-02-19; Blu-ray
Best price: $6.39
Price in other shops: ~~$19.99~~

Dresden
Koch International; Release date: 2008-02-05; DVD
Best price: $9.74
Price in other shops: ~~$19.98~~

Rosenstrasse
Sony; Release date: 2005-01-18; DVD
Best price: $9.65
Price in other shops: ~~$19.99~~

Cold Mountain [Blu-ray]
Lions Gate; Release date: 2012-01-31; Blu-ray
Best price: $4.95
Price in other shops: ~~$14.99~~

Flame And Citron (2008) [Blu-ray]
Release date: 2009-08-11; Blu-ray
Best price: $11.97
Price in other shops: ~~$44.98~~

Downfall [Blu-ray]
Momentum; Blu-ray
Best price: $10.73

The Lives of Others [Blu-ray]
Sony; Release date: 2007-08-21; Blu-ray
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops: ~~$19.99~~

Sophie Scholl [Blu-ray]
Drakes Avenue Pictures; Blu-ray
Best price: $9.24

Gloomy Sunday
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2006-09-12; DVD
Best price: $2.96
Price in other shops: ~~$5.97~~

The Counterfeiters (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]
Sony; Release date: 2008-08-05; Blu-ray
Best price: $17.82
Price in other shops: ~~$26.99~~

Black Book [Blu-ray]