(Stefan Ruzowitzky, 2007)
Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the
Academy Awards in 2008,
The Counterfeiters fictionalises a top secret clandestine Nazi operation, codename
Bernhard, during the second world war. In bringing together a band of skilled concentration camp inmates, including the films focus, master forger Sally Sorowitsch (
Karl Markovics), the Nazi's attempted the biggest counterfeit operation in history. Adapted from the memoirs of
Adolph Burger; a former Jewish book printer who was put to work on the actual Operation Bernhard and whose fictionalised character appears in the film,
The Counterfeiters attempts to ask questions of collusion and survival and the moral implications of propping up an enemy's war effort in a bid to save ones neck, without ever answering them.
It's of no surprise to this reviewer that
The Counterfeiters should be the winner of the Oscar; not to mention that a modern masterpiece, such as
4 months, 3 weeks & 2 days, wasn't even nominated, seeing how it's constructed and deliberately designed to court these sort of awards. In vogue of that trend we see almost too often, the euro-light flick, the one with
arthouse pretensions but with mainstream goals, smoothed around the edges but not entirely sand papered down; the perfect alignment between mass appeal and artistic integrity,
The Counterfeiters is the sort of film that ticks all the right boxes for the Academy.
We open with our hero or, in line with the trend, the anti-hero, sitting, alone on a beach, a scrunched newspaper lays next to him declaring 'The War is Over'; it's as subtle as this film will ever get, before an extended flashback takes up to pre-war Berlin in 1936. Here we see the origins of Sally Sorowitsch, a Russian Jew, laying claim to being the best forger, possibly, in the world, dripping in self satisfaction and drinking expensive champagne, in what appears to be the
Kit-Kat Klub, hoisted from
Cabaret, within hours his world will come crashing down as he's arrested by the German fraud squad, headed by Police Commander Herzog (
Devid Striesow), an initial meeting in what becomes the film's central pairing, a battle of wits and a collusion of spirits, mentality and will.
Until the end of the war Sally remains imprisoned, first in
Mauthausen, where he learns that extreme flattery earns extra perks, his sketches of his jailers brings rewards of extra food, and then at
Sachsenshausen, where he's given a comfy bed, food and privileges with other inmates, all skilled and ready to be exploited by their Nazi jailers. Hand-picked, the inmates set about constructing the largest counterfeit operation ever in existence, forging British currency, and later an attempt at the US dollar, in an effort to flood and destabilise their enemies economic structure.
Basking in a world of false hope, shame and guilt the inmates set about their task with a heavy heart and with an innate will to survive. Sally, grounded in the world of the 'criminal', adapts to this environment better than his fellow counterfeiters, his ability to duck and dive, as well as his natural counterfeiter skills, mark him out as a natural leader. Karl Markovics' portrayal of Sally is one of the films major highlights, it's a caricature for sure but with Markovics at the helm, his stature and ability gives the role extra depth and panache to a character that could easily have been a one-dimensional display of a 'crim with a heart'.
My overwhelming problem with
The Counterfeiters is how calculated it all feels, how convenient the characters fall in to specific roles of morality and ethics; the role of Berger (
August Diehl) especially feels too lofty and moulded, guided by a writer's pen. As this is a story based on some pretty horrific true events this just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth; as if this is beyond the pale in some respect but to be honest I've not questioned the moral implications of this issue, it just seems, on the surface anyway, untoward and somehow, ultimately, lacking respect.
So when the director, Stefan Ruzowitzky, asks us to judge Sally, or at least to ask questions of collusion, it all seems rather false; believing, for instance, that these people actually had a say in the matter seems preposterous. The lack of any narrative tension to hook this flimsy basis on makes it all the more difficult to care; it's left to the actual weight of history itself to move the audience. So for all it's tough questioning, ethical dilemmas and barraging, it never really goes anywhere, there's a hollowness at the core of
The Counterfeiters that doesn't go any deeper than the images on the screen.
So overall, it's left me with a feeling of, well, nothing.
Originally posted on:
Film for the Soul