Crowds scrum on down for Black Book screening

Paul Griffiths reports from the London Film Festival screening of Paul Verhoeven's latest film.

by Paul Griffiths

Carice van Houten in Black Book

Carice van Houten in Black Book

It has been six years since Paul Verhoeven's last film, the vapid Hollow Man, graced the big screen. Now he's back with Black Book, which he co-scripted with Gerard Soeteman, made in Europe following his decades-long stint in Hollywood. Getting its UK premier on the 23rd, his Second World War drama marks a decided turn in the director's sensibilities, - away from the American studio system to a story based in his native homeland.

The War is drawing to an inevitable close in occupied Holland where Carice van Houten's Rachel Stein, an attractive free-spirited Jewish woman, is in hiding, separated from her family. When they are then slain by the Nazis whilst fleeing the country, Rachel joins the Resistance movement to uncover what led them to their deaths, with her searching taking her deep undercover into the Gestapo headquarters.

It's a briskly paced period epic that retains some of the director's idiosyncratic tics while covering territory that will be new to fans only familiar with Showgirls and Starship Troopers and marks a long overdue step away from that Tinseltown tosh.

The crowd of pan-Europeans getting periodically soaked outside the cinema were testament to how eagerly his renaissance has been anticipated. Then having the director wax lyrical about his first European film for some 20 years is just one of lucky dips that the Festival kicks up with satisfying regularity. Just the thing to blow the blues away.

I caught up with Verhoeven after the screening to talk about his return to both the screen and Europe (read the interview here).

Highlight: Carice von Houten melting hearts by admitting that she fell in love with her co-star for real when she first Googled his picture.

Lowlight: Audience members from all society's strata scrumming the doors to get into Black Book. Desperation, the great social leveller.

Share this with others on...
News

A postcard from The Fourth Evia Project Summer and sustainability come together at Thessaloniki Film Festival's green initiative

Belonging Jon S Baird and Steven Rogers on Everything's Going To Be Great

From planet to planet Stanley Nelson with Ed Bahlman on Christine Turner’s Sun Ra: Do The Impossible

'I feel the importance of memorialising all the people who died for Ukraine' Cuba & Alaska director Yegor Troyanovsky on friendship and grief on the frontline in Ukraine

Digging in Rob Petit on taking a dive into Deep Time, inheritance and legacy in documentary Underland

Life first - then cinema Fabrizio Gifuni on Luigi Comencini, Pinocchio and The Time It Takes

More news and features

We're bringing you all the latest from Sheffield Doc/Fest.



We're looking forward to Docs Ireland and the Fantasia International Film Festival.



We've recently brought you coverage of Tribeca Film Festival, ImagineNative, Inside Out, the Cannes Film Festival, Queer East, Fantaspoa, Visions du Réel, the Overlook Film Festival, BFI Flare, the Glasgow Short Film Festival and South by Southwest.



Read our full for more.


Visit our festivals section.

Interact

More competitions coming soon.