Based loosely on true events and Operation Bernhard, The Counterfeiters, written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, reveals plans by the Third Reich to swamp the Allies with counterfeit sterling and dollars.
Renowned Berlin counterfeiter Salomon ‘Sally’ Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) is arrested and interned in Sachsenhausen. Under the camp command of Sturmbannführer Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow), a team headed by Sally is forced to produce counterfeit currency. Housed in relative comfort apart from the rest of the death camp, the men balance their own survival with that of prolonging the war. Complicit and survive or stall and die.
Claustrophobic in its telling, chilling in its exploration, The Counterfeiters looks to the moral conundrum as master printer and former Auschwitz inmate Adolf Burger (August Diehl) clashes with Sally. It’s all a little too clean and sanitised to be fully effective but the Oscar winning feature remains a powerful exploration of adaptation and survival.
Winner of the 2008 Oscar for best foreign language film.
Rating: 77%
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky (The Inheritors, Deadfall)
Writer: Stefan Ruzowitzky (The Inheritors, Deadfall) – based on the book by Adolf Burger
Main cast: Karl Markovics (A Hidden Life, The King’s Choice), August Diehl (Inglorious Basterds, A Hidden Life), Devid Striesow (Downfall, Three)
An Opinion or Two 