Janni Goslinga Movies
Filmmaker Paul Verhoeven returned to the Netherlands after more than twenty years of success in Hollywood to direct this epic-scale war drama based on a true story. Rachel Steinn (Carice van Houten) is a beautiful Jewish woman living in German-occupied Holland during late 1944. Her family members - who have been falsely promised safe passage to Belgium (their names recorded in the 'black book' of the title) are instead robbed and slaughtered by the Germans on a premeditated basis; Rachel herself manages to escape by diving into the water and swimming away. She narrowly avoids capture, then joins the local resistance movement. With her hair dyed blonde, Rachel can easily pass for Aryan, and when the leader of the Dutch resistance movement learns his son has been captured by Axis forces, Rachel is asked to use her feminine charms to persuade a German commander to arrange for the boy's release. Rachel soon finds herself caught up in a dangerous double life as she becomes a sexual plaything for the Nazis while attempting to bring down their evil empire as a spy. Zwartboek was written by Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman, who collaborated on the 1977 international success Soldier of Orange. Zwartboek received its world premier at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, (more)
- 1998
- NR
A strange young man decides to invent for himself the happy and stable life he's never actually had in this Dutch comedy. Kees (Ramsey Nasr) is a gently eccentric loner who takes his imaginary dog for a walk each evening and likes to listen in on his neighbors' conversations. One of the reasons he takes an interest in the lives of other families is that he has little family history of his own; his father is dead, and his mother, no pillar of behavioral stability, destroyed all their family photos in an emotional episode prior to her current stay in a mental hospital. When the chronically unemployed Kees gets a job at a bank, many of his co-workers don't know what to make of him, and scarcely anyone talks to him -- until the day someone comments on a photo in his wallet. Though he doesn't actually know the woman in the picture, Kees tells them the woman in the photo is his girlfriend and starts spinning tales about their "relationship." Before long, Kees has invented an entire alternate personality and is stealing photos from others to fit the new "friends" and "family" he's created. De Man Met De Hond (aka A Man and His Dog) was warmly received in its screenings at the 1999 Rouen Festival of Nordic Film and the Rotterdam Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ramsey Nasr, Viviane de Muynck, (more)
