Stefan Ruzowitzky: interview

The Vienna-born writer-director‘s latest film ’The Counterfeiters‘ is an intelligent, absorbing dramatisation from the real-life memoirs of Adolf Burger, a survivor of the special unit of Jewish concentration camp prisoners coerced by the Nazis into forging British and American banknotes as part of a plan to destabilise the global economy.

This is an extraordinary story, why hasn’t it really come to light internationally before now?
In terms of the concentration camps, I think there were other stories of suffering that were more important. It’s always been a bit delicate, because in relative terms, the counterfeiters were living in luxury. Adolf Burger himself says it was like they were on holiday, but they were dead men on holiday. As soon as they finished their work, they knew that the Nazis would kill them.

What was Adolf Burger’s involvement in the project?
The day he came to the set was very emotional, because it made us all realise we were preserving experiences that this man had lived through, that we were recreating a place were people had been killed and tortured. Before that though, he had checked every draft of the script. He has made it his life’s mission to travel and tell his tale, so he was very aware of the importance of making the story ‘attractive’ – strange word, I know – so that you get the attention of young people.

Was the opening a deliberate provocation in that respect?
Well, it begins with the ultimate happy ending. Sorowitsch, the central character, has survived the concentration camp, he’s on the Côte d’Azur with a beautiful woman and a suitcase of cash. And that’s when he starts thinking: do I deserve this? Did I come too close to evil? It’s based on what actually happened to Smolyanov, the inspiration for the character, but it does serve to keep the audience alert.

It also removes suspense. Was it a question of being careful not to make a thriller ?
Certainly, I was concerned about dampening down the suspense. I had a lot of discussions with my composer about not highlighting the tension at times in the story where you think that someone’s about to be shot. I was trying to avoid that sort of thrill – like the shower sequence in ‘Schindler’s List’ – but at the same time, I wanted a film that was – difficult word again – ‘entertaining’. Something that would communicate to the viewer.

The moral dilemma of the story makes this a film where you can put yourself in the position of the characters – perhaps even more so than in documentary-influenced concentration camp dramas where the enormity of the suffering becomes de-sensitising?
I always imagined that the thing I would never do as a director would be to make a concentration camp film. I still think it’s impossible to confront on film, because cinema works by identifying with the hero. You have to say, ‘What would I do if that was me?’, but it’s hard to identify with the victims, it’s too far away from our own experiences. I thought that in this instance, the viewers would identify with the character based on Burger, the one who’s all for idealistic heroism, but audiences do lean towards Sorowitsch, a man with no ideals, who’s trying to survive in the most decent way he can.

Do you think it’s important that we continue to be exposed to stories from this dark period?
For me it is. I’m Austrian and my grandparents – some more, some less – were dedicated followers of the Nazi Party. Even today in Austria we have right-wing politicians like Jörg Haider who say incredible things about that era, but who still go unpunished by public opinion. So I thought that at some point in my life I would make a statement. In this case, it’s material that definitely works as a movie: it’s emotional, it’s ‘thrilling’ if you excuse the word, and it’s not just a history lesson – it has moral questions of a universal quality.

‘The Counterfeiters’ opens Oct 12.

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