whether or not to show the horrific events. It's very confrontational to be shown the events especially when like in Die Fälscher the events are shown in a way which makes it all look very real. Maybe even too real at times. Some scenes can therefore be quite horrofying. Die Fälscher isn't afraid to show people shot through their heads with just one bullet, blowing it all away in a second. By showing scenes like this you have to take into consideration how much the film tries to show the events and thinks the events really happened. Does it want to shock and point a finger to the Nazi's making sure the audience gets as clear as possible the harm they caused or does it want to show the events as realistic as possible not taking sides? It's important to keep in mind you're watching a fiction film. Some Nazi officers, who are seen making jokes, make the film even more problematic. Even though the story might be based on true events, it doesn not show exactly the way it happened, it can't, no film is possible to do that. The dialogue is made up. But in a way it can be argued that this making of jokes does make the film more real. It dares to do this. A joke seems out of place when depicting events like these, but they probably did make jokes nomatter the circumstances they were in. But still this film is one of fiction and the jokes that are made in the film might have never really been made in real life and thus are only a representation. One might argue that one might is looking too much into this and one should just watch the movie, without being this critical, but these are things that are very important to take into consideration when watching a film like Die Fälscher. However, though us people who never experienced the events themselves, Die Fälscher seems to capture the whole atmosphere really well. Watching the film you actually really do feel the fear these people probably have lived in. When one of the 'mates' of Salomon, Adolf Burger, refuses to help the guys make an exact copy of the dollar and rather sabotage the entire project, questions arise of whether his intentions are legit or not. Die Fälscher gives rise to the choises that had to be made very well, questioning whether to make a descision that can maybe help all the people living in the camps or just do what seems best for the small group of men with whom Burger lives and who all have become sort of friends. Like Sturmbannführer Friedrich Herzog, the guy who they work for, says, in order to surive you have to do what's best in your own interest and forget about the rest. It's therefore not fair to judge the people who went through the events. When living in these camps, those ideas of what is right or what is wrong did no longer count. Burger telling about how he survived by eating food from the luggage of people who were later on gassed, might make him a horrible person, how could someone ever do that? But can you really judge him for doing it? What would you have done? Most people never thought they would survive, a lot of them expected to be all killed eventually, erasing all the traces. So why not try to survive with the food of people who are already going to die?What is it about?
Salomon Sorowitsch, one of Germany's biggest forgers and one of the best, is taken to spend life in a concentration camp. Arrested by a man named Friedrich Herzog, who he later on comes to work for, Salomon tries to survive the best way possible. Because of his talents to make exact copies of money he becomes the main spill in a counterfeiting operation that has become one of the largest in history. Knowing that they probably won't kill him, because he's the one
they need to get the operation to succeed, he tries to help the men who live in the camp with him as much as he can. When one of the guys, Adolf Burger, starts having plans to sabotage the operation, salomon is all of a sudden put in a difficult situation not knowing how to get the project to succeed when one guy tries to keep him from it every single time. When time starts to run out and Herzog threatens to take measures that will end in some of the guys getting killed, Salomon has to make the choice whether to try and make the project work by himself or to join Burger in his attempt to fight back.Final Verdict: *****
Expecting the emphasis not to be that much on live in the camps, I was quite surprised by the hardness and seriousness of the film and felt quite deceived by the trailer I saw of the film before. This film is not at all like Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives Of Others), as the trailer kind of wants you to believe and the fact that they both deal with the Second World War is probably their only thing they have in common. However, Die Fälscher is a very good film. Different from Das Leben Der Anderen and therefore, though to decide which one is better. But because it's not up to me to decide a thing like that, I will say that they're both excellent in their own way. Die Fälscher is made incredibly well and looks great. The camera work is very good. Some takes at the beginning of the film had me quite in awe, moving easily from showing
a big bright chandelier to all of a sudden a crowded gambling table. At times taking on a documentary style of filming, being loose and swaying around the actors, it makes you feel even closer and more a part of the film then you already are. The way the camera easily zooms in to emphasise objects works very well and even more than one might expect. The cinematography too is done very well, showing poetic images with beautiful light blue colouring. The same can be said for the staging of the actors, dramatizing in some way the events, but never too much. Karl Markovisc who plays Salomon is great, never letting the viewer get too close to him and yet close enough to not feel too distant. As a viewer you almost never know what he feels. You watch him go through it all and when asked about what happened to his family he tells almost without any emotion they're all dead. It shows his strength, not giving into his pain and loss. Only at some moments, when something really gets to him, he breaks down smashing a basin with his bare hands. The constant pressure he lives in can be really felt by the way Markovics get into his character, which is done perfectly. Adolf Burger, strongly played by August Diehl, can be seen as Salomon's total opposite. He shows almost too much emotion, giving the viewer two characters that represent two contrasting feelings and two different ways of experiencing the events shown. Burger and his wife made anti-Nazi posters and therefore he no longer excepts helping them by making fake money to get the Germans to prosper. He wants to revolt, getting people together and fight back. By showing these two different characters Die Fälscher manages to give an as close depicion on life in the camps. It's a very strong film, with a good solid story that will really get hold of you and makes you think and which definitely deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.
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