No matter how many times you see a film that has to do with the horrors of World War II, you will not cease to be shocked. The Counterfeiters is another of those stories based in the concentration camps of Germany during the war. I say ‘another’, but not condescendingly. I say it with respect. The full respect that this true story is due.Salomon Sorowitsch, or Sally, is a master counterfeiter. His Jewish heritage leads him to being incarcerated by the Nazis along with a group of other ‘professionals’, but away from the rest of the unfortunate captives who are led to their death day after day. Their expertise earns them minor comforts - a soft bed, the odd cigarette - in return for the manufacture of fake currency, with which the Germans aim to flood the British and American economies and bring about their downfall.
Through the various characters in the film, The Counterfeiters examines the psychology of both kinds of humans that survived the Nazi camps. One was the kind that was glad to just stay alive by virtue of the skills they possess (I recall Sophie’s Choice, for example, where Sophie was also put to work, and thus saved, by her skills as a stenographer while a prisoner in Auschwitz), and the other were people who were consumed by guilt at being alive when so many of their fellow prisoners, including their families, were gassed or shot in multitudes. It is difficult to pronounce a value judgment in times of war, and I have come to realise that one should not even try. However, one thing that cannot be argued with is that staying alive during the war was in itself an incredible achievement, and as we follow Sorowitsch and his fellow inmates in this film, we realise how valuable their achievement was.
The Counterfeiters joins my list of Sophie’s Choice, The Lives Of Others, Life is Beautiful and Schindler’s List as films about World War II that will stay in my memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment