Black Book
November 2007 Reviewed by: Doug Blackburn Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Black Book tells the remarkable story of survival of a twenty-something Jewish woman in Holland during World War II. This is a look at the War from a civilian point of view and is based on actual events. Many themes are present: repression, survival, religious intolerance, the resistance, bigotry, ignorance, the meaning of freedom, and cruelty on the part of Germans, Dutch, and Allies. This story is told with a minimum of computer-generated or enhanced images and a maximum of real-world locations, right down to the buildings that were blown up or otherwise damaged during filming. Paul Verhoeven’s previous films, including Total Recall, Hollow Man, Basic Instinct, Robocop, Showgirls, and Starship Troopers, don’t prepare you for this film. Black Book is not an effects extravaganza, nor a sleazy exploitation flick. While there is some nudity and sex, it’s not a focal point of the movie. Everything about this production is first class; the acting, sets, script, direction, cinematography, costumes, and props are all of the quality you expect in a first-rate motion picture. Dutch is the only spoken language, but the English subtitles are excellent and easy to read.

Picture quality is very good, with excellent detail and good color rendition. The transfer is very clean with few dust specks, no visible compression artifacts, and no obvious color contouring. Shadow detail is quite good, and film grain does not get pervasive in the darker scenes. But even with all the strengths of the images, they aren’t the sharpest, most dimensional, or most detailed I’ve seen from high-def discs. Even so, the images are far better than anything available on DVD, with plenty of texture visible in clothing, skin, weathered surfaces, weapons, and vehicles. There’s nothing to complain about here. The images simply don’t push the limits of the format.

Sound quality is in the same category as picture quality: professionally done without pushing the limits. Aircraft, vehicles, and gunfire are all very authentic and brought back memories of a live World War II re-enactment I observed some years ago. The surround channels aren’t terribly active, but come into play from time to time. The LFE channel isn’t terribly active either, but in the context of this movie, the LFE and surround-channel use is perfectly fine. When there is LFE activity, like the damaged B-17 fly-over while it drops bombs in an effort to shed weight to allow it to gain altitude, it’s quite well done and very convincing.

Extras are limited to a "making of" feature and director commentary. Paul Verhoeven’s commentary is loaded with detail and obvious passion for this project. He points out a lot of detail about how things were done, about the actors, and his commitment to making the movie as authentic as possible. This is one director commentary that’s definitely worth listening to all the way through. Even though Verhoeven speaks in English, there are English subtitles for the commentary in case his Dutch accent makes his English difficult to understand. The 2.5 rating is simply due to the limited number of special features available on the disc.

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