GazerRise Fantastic!

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Bereamic Awesome Movie

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Richard Alex Jenkins I really enjoyed this film which, funnily enough, was the third foreign language film that I watched in a row.Obviously it wasn't made in Hollywood so it didn't have that level of unrealistic glossy schmaltz that, let's say, 'The Boy In The Stripped Pyjamas' had: a film based in and around a concentration camp but which didn't really make you believe it was there. No, this was right on the button, full of skinny, abused, scared, frightened, p*ss-stinking men fighting for their lives. You could feel their sense of inner retreat and the desire just to survive, but without giving up on their morals or grassing up their colleagues.It was a very immersive experience that dispelled my doubts really quickly. I feared it could be a little soft or unrealistic, or that the acting might not be that good, but those fears were unfounded. I'm not a big fan of 'La vita è bella' (Life is Beautiful), for example, because of the campy humour and unrealistic concentration camp imagery and life - just not a place for laughs, optimism, children at all. I need something very gritty, and I got it in spades here.The acting was really good, albeit in German. The sense of being a miserable, worthless Jew was fully conveyed, but with a spirit of dignity and the ability to achieve something on a grandiose scale even under the most severe conditions.I never once questioned the realism or plausibility of the film because it was so well made, but most of all it's the sort of film that I really enjoy on a personal level.Hopefully there'll never be a glossed-over English speaking remake of this film, because there really is no need.

Robyn Nesbitt (nesfilmreviews) Cooperating with the enemy has been explored in other holocaust films such as "Kapo" and "The Grey Zone", but the struggle between survival and conscience has rarely been more clearly drawn than in "The Counterfeiters"-- Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film (2008). Based on the memoir "The Devil's Workshop" by Adolf Burger, one of the survivors of the program, "The Counterfeiters" is the story of Operation Bernhard, a little known World War II program engineered by the Nazis to use Jewish prisoners to subvert the currencies of the U.S. and the U.K through forgery. One of the biggest scams of the war, the counterfeiting operation printed over 130 million pounds sterling in its attempt to destabilize the allied cause and help the sinking German economy."The Counterfeiters" tells the true story of a group of Jewish prisoners who were recruited from other camps for such a career--much against their wishes, if not for the threat of death. Being skilled craftsmen in their own right, they are all brought together, and realize that so long as they deliver the counterfeit bills to their captives, they'll be spared their lives. Boastful, talented Russian-Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch is sent to the Sachenhausen concentration camp to orchestrate the operation, and forced to deal with a psychopathic guard named Holst (Martin Brambach), who only wants results. At first Salomon has no issues helping the Nazi's for comfortable conditions for himself and staff, but over time it begins to take it's toll. He is torn between his determination to stay alive with the knowledge that producing the perfect American dollar will affect the lives of his fellow workers, as well as undermine the entire Allied cause."The Counterfeiters" differs from other films involving the Holocaust in that the emphasis is on the personal moral choices that are made--rather than the overall horror and despair. The two barracks of Jews working on the project are kept in what they call a "golden cage," in which they have enough to eat, beds with clean linen, and piped-in opera music to drown out the sounds of the murders committed on the other side of their thin plywood walls. The prisoners' dilemma over whether to assist the Germans and thereby ensure their continued survival is the heart of the movie, which keeps the focus on moral imperatives rather than the physical ravages of the camps. Ruzowitzky's film is so gripping because his is able to simulate the daily horror's of these men with remarkable subtlety; although the workers are sheltered from seeing the brutality and torture, the screams alone are terrifying. Karl Markovics gives a phenomenal, profound performance and his disturbing moral ambiguity is a the heart of this incredible true story. Stefan Ruzowitzy adapted the book by Adolf Burger, one of the protagonist's fellow prisoners (Diehl). Ruzowitzky's script is beautifully constructed, and to his credit, does not take a position on the internal debate, but gives the viewer enough leeway to question what they would have done in similar circumstances.

billcr12 The Counterfeiters is based on the memoirs of Adolf Berger, a man who was imprisoned for forging baptismal papers for Jews during World War II. It starts with a German guy paying cash at an upscale hotel in Monte Carlo right after the war. A female companion finds numbers tattooed on his arm. It flashes back to 1936, where Salomon Sorowitsch is a forger of passports and money. He is caught and sent to a labor camp, and then to a concentration camp. While there, he does sketches, which are seen by prison guards who ask for family portraits in exchange for extra food. His talents noticed by the higher ups, and he is teamed with others with artistic abilities to forge currencies. The US dollar is the main one, as the theory is to flood America with the fake paper in order to destroy the economy. They first successfully duplicate the British Pound, but intentionally delay their work on the American greenback. Eventually, the Russians arrive and liberate the camp, and this leads to a confrontation with fellow prisoners. The film ends back in Monte Carlo and I was impressed with the story, from beginning to end.

Movie_Muse_Reviews The Holocaust has been revisited in film so many times that I imagine the first thing German-born film actors ask themselves upon meeting is "which film(s) were you a Nazi in?" The crimes of the Nazi Party and the German soldiers carrying out its mission to revive Germany through the mass killing of Jews and other "invalids" are so unfathomable and powerful that filmmakers and storytellers can't help but find so many ways to tell complex stories of morality and human survival."The Counterfeiters" is another one of these films, but lack of originality is absolutely the only knock against it."Counterfeiters" focuses on a group of Jews assembled by the Nazis to create mass quantities of Ally currency to be used to decimate Ally economies. It's the same type of lens on the Holocaust, but a different "edition" so to speak. Yet the script is immaculate, the drama understated and effective, the plot completely engaging, and best of all: it's a Holocaust film under two hours -- and a great one at that. It begins with a morally complex main character, the crooked-faced Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), who before the war was a professional counterfeiter, one with considerable artistic talent who chose the more "financially sound" career. Simply put, he's a criminal and the crimes of the Holocaust manage to make us sympathetic to him. He's an honest criminal, but a criminal no less. As the leader of his counterfeiting team in a way, following his point of view is extremely interesting. There is his survival instinct, his pride over the work even though it's helping the Nazis and characters such as his friend Burger the printer (Adolf Burger, who wrote the book the film is based on), who pressures him not to do the work and risk death on principle.These are all familiar Holocaust film themes. There are the Jews who will do anything to stay alive, helping the Nazis or doing whatever they bid for an extra scrap of food and soft beds and those who would be willing martyrs, dying before they stoop to a certain level or help a Nazi.The difference is in the execution. Stefan Ruzowitzky has done an incredible job adapting Burger's incredible true account. He's identified the key moments and turning points and crafted ideal scenes to help build the plot up. He wastes no time getting to the point. The scenes are short and sweet, giving us bursts of information, emotion and symbolism, sometimes in just a minute. Directing off his own script, he directs us to key visuals that convey all that information like a leftover piece of food that conveys the hunger not always at the forefront of a scene. The pacing is exceptional, especially for a Holocaust film, and though some of the scenes are brutal it doesn't hit the audience over the head with scenes of terror and emotion that go straight for the heartstrings. It's much more subtle and effectively so.It's hard to visit yet another Holocaust film, but "The Counterfeiters" is worth it because of Ruzowitzky's fine craftsmanship and its overall subtly. It's the impact of a Holocaust film without all the emotionally distressful scenes and the screaming and the heartfelt violin music. The unique story of Sorowtisch and these group of Jews who are given a bit more privilege yet in turn forced to wrestle with a bit of moral guilt makes it a warranted trip into a oft-visited historical genre.~Steven CVisit my site http://moviemusereviews.com