It happens on every Academy Awards night. Amidst all the red carpet hoopla and Best Picture predicting, we discover the names of some worthwhile movies we haven't seen, often because they never made their way to a multiplex near us. We make a mental note to catch these films, admirable efforts that tend to be nominated in categories like Best Documentary or Best Foreign Language Film. Then we promptly resume the business of making fun of Tilda Swinton's dress and forget all about those high-minded cinematic plans.
Well, consider this review a reminder: "The Counterfeiters," winner of this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, is on DVD ($28.96) today and deserves to reach an even wider audience than it found in the smattering of art house theaters that screened it last winter.
"The Counterfeiters" is technically a Holocaust movie, but one that focuses on a very specific, little known story about that horrifying era in world history. In a concentration camp called Sachsenhausen, a small group of prisoners -- including a forgery master played by Karl Markovics -- have been recruited to participate in Operation Bernhard, an attempt to print counterfeit British and American currency as part of a top-secret Nazi mission. To keep their charges motivated, the SS officers give them "perks" that aren't provided to most: comfortable beds, decent meals, even a Ping-Pong table. The guilt that comes from having these luxuries while their fellow Jews suffer -- not to mention the moral dilemmas that inevitably arise from assisting the very organization responsible for committing atrocities against the Jewish people -- are just some of the complexities the movie tackles.
"The Counterfeiters" depicts the profound pain, loss and dehumanization experienced by the prisoners, sometimes in harrowing fashion. But, strange as it may sound, the movie also manages to be entertaining. During one of the DVD's extras, writer-director Stefan Ruzowitzky says that odd hybrid -- dark Holocaust drama combined with moments akin to a counterfeit-caper-flick -- made it a hard sell in Germany and Austria where, he says, moviegoers are less likely to accept a merger between high and low art.
That observation is one of many interesting insights into the film's creation and reception that can be found in the commentary track, interviews and featurettes that appear on this disc. The best, must-watch feature of that bunch is "Burger's Artifacts," a 20-minute interview with Adolf Burger, author of the memoirs that inspired "The Counterfeiters" and a central character (played by August Diehl) in the picture.
As Burger tells fascinating stories about his experiences as a typographer at Sachsenhausen and points to various documents, including a map of the building where he and his fellow prisoners lived, it's impossible to ignore the fact that "The Counterfeiters" isn't merely an intense Holocaust drama or a compelling Oscar winner. For men like Burger, the paradox of sleeping on fresh white linens while facing potential execution at the hands of the Nazis was very real. As he puts it: "We were dead men on holiday. We never expected to walk away alive from this secret operation." But Burger did. And next week, the survivor will celebrate his 91st birthday.
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PHOTOS: 'The Counterfeiters' -- Sony Pictures Classics
