A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The Counterfeiters

Date Viewed: 3/8/08

Details:

Karl Markovics (Salomon Sorowitsch)

August Diehl (Adolf Burger)

Devid Striesow (Sturmbannführer Friedrich Herzog)

August Zirner

Dolores Chaplin

Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky

Score: 1/2

The Review: It's WW-II, the concentration camps at Sachsenhausen, in (what we now know as) the final year or so of the war. Although you're set up at the beginning to understand the business of Salomon Sorowitsch, one of the best counterfeiters in Germany -- and there are a few curious events that seem out of chronological order -- the majority of the film is set in a small sub-block in Sachsenhausen, isolated from anything else happening in that camp. The Nazis have cloistered a select few -- not only Jews -- who have the skills (printer, ink chemistry, engraving, counterfeiting -- hence the title) they think are needed to create bogus currency for their English and American enemies. Flood the market with high-quality, tainted bills, and the war develops an effective economic edge. But will the prisoners cooperate with the plan? And just how successful was this plot?

The events and characters are derived from a book, a firsthand memoir written by one of the participants, Adolf Burger (The Devil's Workshop a.k.a., Des Teufels Werkstatt: Die Geldfälscherwerkstatt im KZ Sachsenhausen, 2001). More information has just recently been published by Lawrence Malkin (2008), in Krueger's Men: The Secret Nazi Counterfeit Plot and the Prisoners of Block 19.

Tension within the group and with their captors notwithstanding, there is a profound sense of disconnection and isolation. One of the more startling events of the film comes near the end, when they finally leave their narrowly circumscribed block, and enter the rest of the camp. Words cannot do justice to the scenes.

The first thing you notice, the only thing you notice about the actor Markovics, is his face. Amazing, iconic, blocky, both odd and peculiar -- a face many lesser character actors would love to have. Markovics is excellent as the counterfeiter Sorowitsch, forced into a compromised position as the ersatz leader of the group, tasked to deadlines, dealing with recalcitrant comrades and a sympathetic commandant. But rebellion evinces itself in unusual ways.

(25-Mar-08)

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