The Counterfeiters

(2008)

Directed by

Stefan Ruzowitzky

Review by Terry Plucknett

Last year, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the Best Foreign Film Oscar.  With such films as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, and the Oscar-winning La Vie en Rose not even nominated due to the round-about way the selection process is run, it left five nominees that were thought to be inferior compared to these heavyweights.  The winner of these inferior films was Austrian made The Counterfeiters.  After viewing this film that became the first Austrian-made movie to win an Oscar, I realized that although it was a fine movie, it was definitely inferior to the other outstanding foreign films not invited to the party.

The Counterfeiters focuses on Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch, a man known as the best counterfeiter in the world in the late 1930’s.  When he is finally caught, he is sent to a concentration camp in Nazi Germany.  He prides himself in his ability to adapt.  He shows this in the camp by becoming a personal painter and artist for the guards.  After some time, he is sent to another camp where he is placed in a special wing where prisoners are forced to use their talents to make counterfeit money to help fund the war effort for the Nazis and to sabotage the British and American economies.  While here, Sorowitsch and his fellow inmates are treated in a more civil matter.  They are given normal clothes, allowed to grow out their hair, given real food, and given games to play in their free time.  Sorowitsch is their leader simply because he is the only counterfeiting specialist there.  The rest are printing experts, photographers, and artists.  While in this special wing of the camp, the moral issue is brought up often asking if it is fair that they live so well while their countrymen all die on the other side of a fence.  Some, like Sorowitsch, are just interested in surviving, while others look at the bigger picture.  It is a fascinating debate that becomes a theme throughout the film.

The movie has an intriguing story that gives reason enough to see it, however it could have been better.  One thing that distracted the entire movie was a bizarre score that did not seem to fit what was going on.  Here are a group of people in a concentration camp being forced to support the people that are abusing them, yet the score belongs in a much more upbeat, playful movie.  It’s a fluff score, when the story is everything but.  I am very conscious of music.  The best scores are those that you don’t even realize are there because they fit and match the mood of what is happening so profoundly.  If you are able to notice the score, it is a slight issue.  If it distracts from what is happening on the screen, it is a problem.  This score was a problem.

With that said, when you are able to focus on the screen, there are several brilliant performances led by Karl Markovics as Sorowitsch and August Diehl as Adolf Burger, a man imprisoned for printing anti-Nazi flyers and is always aware of the bigger picture.  These performances add to the intrigue of the story.

It is not a perfect movie, but strong nonetheless.  Should it have won the Oscar?  I have yet to see the other obscure movies nominated, but I would place it behind all the movies mentioned before.  Why these weren’t in the mix, I don’t know.  But all of them deserved a shot before this film.

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