Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky

Written by Stefan Ruzowitzky

Based on a book by Adolf Burger

Starring Karl Markovics, August Diehl, David Striesow

DVD is released on March 19th, 2008 and is available from the U.K. at Play.com for £11.99

Review by Michael Edwards

Writer-director Stefan Ruzowitzky has been quoted as saying “There’ve been some great Austrian film-makers working in America, most of them had to leave my country because of the Nazis. So it sort of makes sense that the first Austrian movie to win an Oscar is about the Nazis’ crimes.” The strange implication behind this wry comment is that the Americans should be grateful for the Nazis driving Austria’s filmmaking talent to the states, but I’m happy to report to you that a strange historical gratitude is not the only thing going for this subtle and engaging wartime flick.

Like The Lives of Others before it, The Counterfeiters takes a closer look at individual experiences in German history, though treading far more familiar turf in the form of World War II concentration camps. The story is centred on Operation Bernhard, the Nazi plan to counterfeit British and US currency on a grand scale in order to flood the economies of its enemies, thus hampering their war efforts. However, this forgery was not undertaken by blue-eyed Nazi saboteurs but by Jewish financiers, and a Russian-Jewish forger and artist named Salomon Smolianoff, in a specially segregated section of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It was Smolianoff who was to inspire the main character - Salomon Sorowitsch - in the film.

Whilst this sensitive topic is a well versed one, with Schlinder’s List and Life is Beautiful alone more than adequately portraying the horror and implications of the horrific event, Ruzowitzky is undeterred by the backcatalogue on the topic, instead he bravely strides in his own direction, and in so doing creates an atmosphere subtly different to the well-trodden route of the aggressively stark, bleak or wistful. Rather than feeling the need to educate us on the historical impacts, he puts all his efforts to depicting the moral and emotional nuances of those prisoners involved in operation Bernhard, ably drawing us through the turmoil felt by them as they came to terms with the fact that, to ensure their own survival, they were helping finance a regime whose evils they know too well. Not all of the forgers are compliant with the will of their captors however, and Adolf Burger (whose real-life memoirs aided the historical accuracy of the film) becomes intent on sabotaging the operation. He eventually wins a majority of his co-captors to his cause, and what ensues is a team effort at delaying tactics designed to stem both the cash flow to Nazi coffers and the inevitable retribution if they were to be found out. Central to the debate is Sorowitsch, whose criminal background and present persecution, along with his attachment to a young Russian Jew named Kolya Karloff provide a useful medium for the ambiguity of the morality in question.

The ‘documentary-style’ shooting and liberal use of close-ups, along with the moody lighting and natural camerawork, keeps us engaged with the seclusion of the ‘golden-cage’ the counterfeiters inhabit within Sachsenhausen and help to convey some measure of the tension and internal strife suffered in their unique situation, and the acting is strong too.

Overall the film is a moving one, which avoids the well-trodden paths of the topic and tells a genuinely compelling tale which achieves the nigh-on impossible task of allowing audiences to identify with a small number of those who suffered through the holocaust. But it may not be for everyone. There is little action to spice up the simmering emotion on screen, and the terror and bloodshed of the Nazi regime is more implied than held up for us all to gawp at with horror and derision. Some may also find the pace a little slow as it carefully depicts the moral nuances of the prisoners forced into Operation Bernhard to save their own lives with carefully considered, but far from flashy, cinematography. Nonetheless, I for one think that this is a compelling film depicting a series of individual tragedies as well as a collective tragedy, and it could easily bear repeat viewing.

The extras are a great way into the story, providing as they do some of the raw material that inspired and informed the film - mostly in the form of Adolf Burger, the author of the book on which the feature is based. Despite approaching 90 years of age Burger displays an amazing vivacity that really animates the story behind the story through and interview and a discussion of the source material he gathered in researching his book. Interviews with Stefan Ruzowitzky and Karl Markovics, both full of interesting and insightful comments, complete the background material on offer. In addition to these we have the obligatory ‘Making of’ and ‘deleted scenes’, along with the theatrical trailer, all of which give you pretty much what you’d expect.

THE COUNTERFEITERS is out on DVD in the UK on 19th of March.