The Counterfeiters

There seem to have been quite a few WW2 films recently dealing with Nazi oppression within occupied Europe, Defiance and Boy in the Striped Pyjamas are two I can name off the top of my head. The Counterfeiters is another of these; the true story of a plot in which the Nazis intended to use counterfeiters held in a concentration camp to forge millions of pounds and destabilise the British economy.

'The Counterfieters' won the best foreign language film Oscar last year, so I was expecting it to be pretty good. It starts out quite promisingly with scenes of the main protagonist's (Sally) life before and after the war before showing him being arrested for forgery by a policeman who will soon become a Nazi officer during the war responsible for organising the counterfeiting operation.

Depictions of the holocaust are rightfully disturbing, and this is true of the conditions and brutality of the guards depicted in this film. More than this though, 'The Counterfieters' shows a side of the holocaust which it is often more difficult to think about - the people who did unpleasant things which they hated themselves for simply in order to survive. In the same way that Sally and his fellow forgers help the Nazi war effort in order to stay alive, Sally's foil - the anti-forgery officer turned Nazi officer Herzog - clearly hates himself for what he does. Herzog may be complicit in the crimes of the Nazis, but is he only doing these things to keep himself and his family alive and well? What would we do in similar circumstances?

In addition to the two main characters who face these moral dilemmas, there are characters on the moral extremes too. Many of the prison guards take utter delight in humiliating the prisoners while one of the prisoners - Burger - risks the life of himself and the others by deliberately sabotaging the forging work. The fact that Sally and Herzog both know about Burger's forgery but refuse to act is one of the most revealing and interesting plot points of the film.

This is a film which is fairly compact and to the point. It has a couple of good performances and is disturbing where it needs to be while simultaneously arguing that not all humanity was lost during the holocaust. I suspect that the final few scenes are meant to be really powerful, they didn't quite work for me - but they certainly didn't detract from the rest of a quite excellent film.