Zwartboek (Black Book) review

 Number 435 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Paul Verhoeven's Dutch WW2 film Zwartboek which translates as Black Book.

Rachel Stein (Carice Van Houten) is a famed Jewish singer during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. When her hiding place is destroyed and her family are murdered by the SS, she joins the Dutch resistance. She is tasked by high-ranking resistance member Hans Akkermans (Thom Hoffman) to seduce the Gestapo leader Ludwig Muntze (Sebastian Koch.) This was all based on a true story.

In war films, it is all too easy to say that these are the good characters and these are the bad characters. but the reality is never that black and white. And that was all part of Verhoeven's vision. He definitely succeeded. We'll take glamorous heroine Rachel Stein as an example. Victim of Nazi persecution, she makes an obvious hero. However, she then falls in love with the Nazi official that she's seducing. The Nazi official Muntze quickly realises she is a Jew, but he has also fallen in love with her. And he is much fairer than his brutal deputy Gunther Franken (Waldermar Kobus.) Realising the war is lost, Muntze secretly negotiates a ceasefire with the Dutch resistance.

*spoiler alert*

When the Netherlands is liberated at the end of the war, Muntze is executed for his crimes and Rachel is locked up as a supposed Nazi collaborator. Her fellow Dutch compatriots treat her and the other supposed collaborators deplorably: humiliating them by forcing them to strip naked. But then Akkermans, now an army colonel, breaks things up and declares them no better than the Nazis. And this scene is not difficult to imagine happening in real life. The Dutch are angry at their treatment and want to take out their anger on anything they can.

As the two leads, Van Houten and Koch gave a lot of nuance to character who ran the risk of being flatly good and bad.  But it was these fundamental flaws that made all these characters so human and relatable. even the burtal Franken is a keen singer/ballroom dancer. To have characters be simply good or simply bad would be far too two-dimensional and cliche.  And Hoffman shone as the true villain of the piece. 

*more spoilers*

Hans Akkerman, despite being a high-level member of the resistance, is actually a secret Nazi collaborator.  Rachel Stein and her family try escaping to safety by boarding a boat that will carry them down the river. They are discovered by the SS and Rachel is the only one who escapes with her life. It is later revealed that Hans set this up, so he could steal whatever money the refugees had. This is entirely believable as well. Everybody becomes desperate in war. And loyalties can change at the drop of the hat.

Van Herhoeven perfectly captured the brutality of war: from the SS gunning down escaping Jews to them torturing one of the captured resistance fighters. He certainly pulled no punches. He succeeded in creating a harrowing tale of human morality and I'll end this review on his assessment of Zwartboek: "in this movie everything has a shade of grey. There are no people who are completely good no people who are completely bad. It's like life. It's not very Hollywoodian."

Amores Perros Review

 Number 193 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Mexican psychological drama 'Amores Perros.'

Roughly translating to "Love's a bitch," this movie tells three separate but interconnecting stories that all revolve around the theme of dogs. The first follows Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Susanna (Vanessa Bauche.) Octavio is in love with Susanna who happens to be his brother's, Ramiro (Marco Perez) girlfriend. Ramiro is abusive and unfaithful and Susanna slowly starts to return Octavio's feelings. However, they need money to run away, so Octavio starts entering his rottweiler Cofi into dog fighting contests.

However, after a fight goes awry, and Octavio needs to make a quick getaway, he crashes his car into Valeria's car (Goya Toledo,) kickstarting the second story. Valeria is a supermodel whose boyfriend Daniel (Alvaro Guerrero) has left his family to be with her. The car crash leaves her wheelchair bound with a broken leg. While Daniel is at work, Valeria's only companion is her dog Richie. But he becomes trapped after falling through a hole in the floorboards.

The final story revolves around El Chivo, an ex-convict and guerilla fighter, who is now homeless and takes care of Mexico's stray dogs. One of these dogs is Cofi who he rescues from the car crash. El Chivo is also a part-time hitman whom a man hires to kill his half brother.

Hyperlink structures like this always have the potential to be complicated and convoluted. Even other great hyperlink films like Pulp Fiction can be confusing for the unsuspecting view. However, Amores Perros was surprisingly simple in its execution. Rather than having the stories intercept at various points and viewers having to constantly track of who's who, the storyline is far more linear. Octavio crashing his car is the cause and effect that leads to Valeria injuring her leg, as well as El Chivo nursing Cofi back to health. That's all there was. Although I do wonder whether this is a film that worked better as a whole rather than in its individual parts.

And I am referring to the film's most traumatic scenes - the dog fighting. I've written a short story about dog fighting and I had to research into the brutal sport, if you can call it that. To watch these scenes was triggering to say the least. And as such it was difficult to root for a character like Octavio who voluntarily offered Cofi to the dog fight. If it was a last resort to make money, it would be more understandable, but not entirely. Beyond that, the guy is borderline creepy. In a different film, his persistence to win over Susanna would result in a restraining order.

Having said that, Susanna's Stockholm syndrome was played well. Like most domestic abuse victims, she doesn't even realise that she is being abused at first. And her abuser slowly alienates her from her family and friends. It takes her a while to snap out of her denial. And while Ramiro was a scumbag, it was nice to his motivations. He works a dead-end supermarket job for little money. Powerless in his working life, he takes control of his family life. This depth helped him to not be just another generic villain.

Valeria's storyline was far more interesting. It was one of loneliness and isolation. Due to Octavio's actions, she becomes housebound and can no longer work. Her relationship with Daniel becomes strained especially when her only companion, her dog, Richie, becomes trapped underneath the floorboards. Out of the three main characters, she is the most innocent and also the most tragic. It was sad to see her despair at the removal of her billboards around the city. Modelling is an unstable profession. It's all too easy to be replaced by a younger, prettier model.

Finally we come to El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria) - the homeless, hit-man hired to kill a businessman. However, he is sick of being used and exploited and instead manipulates the situation, so that his employer and intended victim come face to face. He loosely ties them up, leaves them a loaded gun and allows them to fight it out. And when he isn't being a hitman, he is taking care of the city's strays. This isn't the first time that I've seen an otherwise morally unredeemable character be redeemed by his love of animals, but it's a trope I never tire of seeing. And it leads to the film's saddest scene.

El Chivo comes home one day to see that Cofi has killed the rest of the dogs. Due to the horrible trauma he's experienced, he has become a killing machine. In El Chivo's rage, he holds a gun to Cofi's head, but is unable to pull the trigger. After all, this wasn't Cofi's fault, but the scumbag people who trained him to be a killer.

I would definitely recommend this film. It's a hell of a ride, but a powerful one. Just a warning about the dogfighting. Obviously it isn't real - it's just playfighting that's been skillfully edited, but that doesn't make it any less traumatic to watch. And that's just watching. Can you imagine what it would be like for the poor dogs who actually have to fight?