Sony Pictures Classics has paid a large amount to acquire North American rights to Paul Verhoeven's World War II comedy thriller "Black Book" (aka. Zwartboek) reports the trades.
Verhoeven's espionage film, told mostly in German and Dutch, caused a huge stir amongst distributors and critics who dub it "Schindler's List" meets "Showgirls", the latter of course which Verhoeven directed.
That label comes from it featuring plenty of frank sex scenes and darkly comic moments such as the Jewish female lead character graphically dyeing her pubic hair blonde to infiltrate the Nazi party as a member of the resistance.
The treatment of the material has upset some critics who blasted the film, other high profile ones though got Verhoeven's quirkly style seen in his other work like "Basic Instinct", "Total Recall" and "Starship Troopers", and whilst not singing high praise, did admit to enjoying it.
