He has now returned to his country to make this memoir of Dutch participation in World War Two.

While the film is very reminiscent of the big-budget war memoir and action films of the 1960s (Operation Crossbow, The Dirty Dozen), it is reminiscent also of the tribute films made in the 1950s. MGM’s Betrayed (1954) with Clark Gable, Lana Turner and Victor Mature is very similar in its plot outline.

The film begins and ends on an Israeli kibbutz in 1956, also giving some insight into the consequences of World War Two and Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. The kibbutz has been set up with moneys confiscated by the Nazis from Jews. However, the film goes back in time to focus on a young woman who is being hidden by a Catholic family when their house is destroyed and she discovers that her parents are on a boat to be taken to freedom. She joins them – but Dutch traitors have sold out and the Jews are murdered and their goods confiscated. She joins the Dutch Resistance.

The film is also a portrait of the Dutch Resistance, the relentless leaders, the raids, the dangers experienced. The young woman, using her wits very quickly on a train, is able then to infiltrate Gestapo headquarters, have a relationship with the chief. This leads her to be able to plant a microphone in the office. However, there is a traitor amongst the Resistance and the plans go awry. With some detective work, especially after the end of the war, the traitors are revealed. There are some very powerful sequences at the end where the young woman, branded as a traitor herself, is humiliated by angry Dutch citizens and officials after the war.

The film does not paint a black and white picture of Dutch participation in the war – some people are heroic, others are traitors and greedy for their own gain, not scrupulous in betraying their fellow Dutch and, especially, Jewish citizens.

While Paul Verhoeven evokes memories of past films, his own franker style of film-making means that some of the sexual implications of the stories as well as scenes of violence are much more explicit in this film.

Carice van Houten shows great versatility in the central role. Sebastian Koch is a more sympathetic Gestapo leader. Thom Hoffmann (who had appeared in Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man) is a resistance leader.

The film always keeps the interest, is an example of the work of somebody who is able to help a nation examine its conscience and look again at the history of the past without romanticising it – or, while romanticising it, look at some of the realities and the darker side as well.

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto:

Be first to comment this article

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.