I hadn’t seen this when I made my Oscar predictions, but correctly picked it for foreign-language film by observing the “Holocaust rule”—i.e., the Holocaust-themed movie always wins. Still, upon seeing it, it’s not a bad choice. It’s a much less sweeping story than Schindler’s List or The Pianist, and less horrific, simply because the main character, Salomon Sorowitsch, managed to avoid the magnitude of suffering of other Jews. In all tales of great evil, it’s easy to forget that both the heroic and the unsavory are victims. Sorowitsch was exactly what the Nazis accused him of being, a master forger, but it was their need for his skills that kept him fed. He is well aware that his ability to reproduce the British pound will help fund Hitler’s war effort, but is in no mood to sacrifice himself by trying to sabotage the effort. His nemesis, a communist, is more idealistic, but the decisions they make as individuals may also determine the fate of the men they work with.
IMDB link
viewed 3/21/08; reviewed 3/27/08
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