The Counterfeiters

The Counterfeiters (2007)
Seen on the 19th September 2010 (98 min)

A film about survival in uncertain times: is it better to keep one's life helping the enemy, or die to sabotage the enemy? A film about who the enemy is (sometimes the enemy is within) and what freedom means in war time. A person (a jew) who never identified himself as one, ends up in a gild of counterfeiters selected by the Nazi regime to pun on the biggest counterfeiter operation. Sally (not even called Salomon himself) ends up taking the role of the gild's leader and tries his best to keep everybody's desires at first. An ethical dilemma is brought up by Burger (another inmate) who wants to martyrise himself by sabotaging the whole operation arguing that it is better to die than to help the enemy. Tensions arise when Sally puts the case forward that an extra day is an extra day and that helping the enemy could bring them salvation. The ending is interesting, full of realisation for Sally, himself and his role in the world: a counterfeiter is a counterfeiter is a counterfeiter. You can't cheat the cheaters but there is some poetry on this too.