The Counterfeiters [Blu-ray]

Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky

Overview

Writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzky explores the moral corrosion of Nazi complicity with this tightly wound adaptation of Adolf Burger's fact-based book The Devil's Workshop. Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) may be a talented artist at heart, but his desire for wealth has driven him to use his creativity for more nefarious means. Arrested by the police inspector Herzog (Devid Striesow) at the onset of World War II, Sorowitsch is sent to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp. It's not long before Salomon's thinly veiled opportunism earns him a relatively comfortable position as the camp's resident sketch artist, and five years later he is mysteriously swept away to Sachsenhausen. Upon arriving at the camp, Sorowitsch discovers that Herzog, now a commandant, is attempting to destabilize the economies of the Allies while simultaneously funding the Nazi war machine by assembling a special team of counterfeit artists to create millions in fraudulent pounds and dollars. As the operation gets under way, Sorowitsch finds the efforts of the team continually undermined by unyieldingly idealistic collotype specialist Adolf Burger (August Diehl). In the months that follow, the team wrestles with their consciences as Axis forces are gradually overwhelmed by Allied might. The Counterfeiters won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/05/2008
UPC:	0043396263901
Original Release:	2007
Rating:	R
Source:	SONY PICTURES
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:35:00

Special Features

Commentary with director; Deleted scenes; Making-of the counterfeiters; Adolf Burger's historical artifacts

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Karl Markovics	Salomon Sorowitsch
August Diehl	Adolf Burger
Devid Striesow	Friedrich Herzog
Dolores Chaplin	La donna dai capelli rossi
August Zirner	Dr. Klinger
Martin Brambach	Holst
Veit Stuebner	Atze
Sebastian Urzendowsky	Kolya
Andreas Schmidt	Zilinsky
Tilo Pr?ckner	Dr. Viktor Hahn
Bernd Raucamp	KZ-Insasse Dusche
Hille Beseler	Grete Herzog
Tim Breyvogel	Agent
Marie B?umer	Aglaia
Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey	Hans
Jan Pohl	Sascha
Heinz Schubert	Hehler
Holger Schober	Unterscharf?hrer
Werner Daehn	Rosenthal
Anton Maria Aigner	Regieassistenz
Lenn Kudrjawitzki	Actor
Marian Kalus	Actor
Norman Stoffregen	Actor
Gode Benedix	Actor
Oliver Kanter	Actor
Hans Peter Kortenbruck	Actor
Dirk Prinz	Actor
Erik Jan Rippmann	Actor
Marius Ruhland	Composer

Technical Credits

Stefan Ruzowitzky

Adolf Burger

Stefan Ruzowitzky	Screenwriter
Babette Schroder	Producer
Josef Aichholzer	Producer
Nina Bohlmann	Producer
Adolf Burger	Screenwriter
Christoph Fisser	Producer
Henning Molfenter	Producer
Caroline von Senden	Producer
Charlie Woebcken	Producer
Tobias Fleig	Sound Effects
Rainer Heesch	Sound Effects
Torsten Heinemann	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Heta Mantscheff	Casting
Babette Schroeder	Producer

Editorial Reviews

"Average" Holocaust films -- if it's not insensitive to refer to them as such -- capture the stark, ever-present misery of life in the camps. But the superior ones plunge deeper into the camps' bitter ironies, into the false comforts that may have actually weakened the inhabitants' resolve toward defiance. And what gets more bitterly ironic than Jewish prisoners who unwittingly fund the Nazi war effort by counterfeiting international currency? The Counterfeiters, which won the 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, has many parallels with another Oscar winner from 14 years earlier: Schindler's List. Both feature extraordinary men whose efforts ultimately save numerous lives -- even in roundabout fashion -- but who agonize about what more they could have done. In the case of Salomon Sorowitsch, there's the extra intangible of not knowing how many lives he actually imperiled by initially fulfilling his charge. Historical retrospect makes it easy to condemn these counterfeiters for a complicity apparently motivated by self-preservation, but director Stefan Ruzowitzky's treatment skillfully conveys that these were decent men who made imperfectly human decisions. Ruzowitzky's script captures a delicate cat-and-mouse game between the prisoners and the commandants, who themselves become occasionally conflicted by the human relationships they've unwittingly formed. The details revealed about the craft of counterfeiting, which rarely gets such an incisive spotlight on film, are also fascinating. Benedict Neuenfels overlays everything he shoots with a graininess that makes it difficult to tell when the film was made, concentrating on the era it depicts instead. It may be problematic for some viewers that The Counterfeiters is a work of fiction, whereas most Holocaust films stringently adhere to recorded facts and people who really existed. But the "just hold out long enough" tension of the prison camps is real, as are the core moral issues the story explores.