ITALY: Director Paul Verhoeven, best known for "Basic Instinct", presents his high-octane World War Two thriller "Black Book" at the Venice Film Festival

Paul Verhoeven, best known for Hollywood hits "Basic instinct" and "Total Recall," has presented his film "Black Book" at this year's Venice Film Festival. The Dutch film maker, who returned to his native Netherlands, is in competition with a film challenging the view that the anti-Nazi resistance was a movement only for heroes. "Black Book" was inspired by real events and characters, and seeks to undermine movie stereotypes of evil Fascist forces, heroic resistance fighters and powerless Jewish victims. Vehoeven said he saw little reason for optimism. "It is difficult to imagine there is an enormous amount of hope available to humankind," he said on Friday (September 1) at a news conference for his film. "Among ourselves we have killed 150 million people. Humans are often animals to each other." His response was to paint a bleak picture of the Netherlands at the end of the war, portraying anti-Nazi resistance fighters not simply as heroes but also as traitors. Verhoeven hinted he had returned to the Netherlands to make "Black Book" because he was disillusioned with Hollywood. "It's true that after the last movie I did in Los Angeles I felt as empty as the movie," he said, referring to his 2000 film "Hollow Man".

ITN Source | September 6, 2006

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