Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

After his highly successful Hollywood career, Paul Verhoeven returns to the Netherlands and helms a more personal epic. Truth-based, Black Book, set in Holland during the final months of the Second World War portrays Rachel Stein, a beautiful and independent young Jewish woman who joins the Resistance and sets out on a dangerous mission to infiltrate the upper echelons of the Gestapo in order to find out who has betrayed her family. Nothing so banal as simple heroes or villains in this fast-paced, densely plotted movie: although there's little out-and-out comedy, there's still a sense that Verhoeven enjoys keeping us on our toes while occasionally letting the action rip.