Category: Reviews

The Counterfeiters is a fictionalised account of an astonishing true story: Nazi Germany’s Operation Bernhard, the largest counterfeiting undertaking in history. The operation forced Jewish concentration camp prisoners to produce forged banknotes, passports and even postage stamps for the benefit of the Third Reich.

The movie is based on the memoirs of one of the participants, Adolf Burger. A communist printer, Burger urges his fellow inmates to sabotage the project of forging the American Dollar, in order to undermine the Nazi war effort.

The central character is a professional forger, Saloman Solowich. In the early scenes of the film we see, Solowich, “the most charming scoundrel in Berlin”, quaffing Champagne in the bohemian decadence of Weimar Germany. When he ends up in a concentration camp, his strategy is simple: adapt and survive. Continue reading “DVD Review: The Counterfeiters”

The narrative of The White Tiger takes the curious form of a one-sided correspondence between Balram Halwai, Bangalore-based entrepreneur, and the Premier of China.

Halwai tells the premier that the future belongs to the “yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage, and drug abuse.” At first he comes across as a bit of a buffoon, but through his riffs on politics, religion and Indian society we begin to see much more complex character. It does not take us long to learn that as well as being an entrepreneur, he is also a murderer.

Halwai is a “Half-Baked Indian”, once a promising student, who had his schooling cut short at a young age when he was sent to break charcoals in a tea shop. He gains his knowledge where and when he can: from the half-understood conversations in English of his passengers; or the torn page of an old textbook used to wrap a greasy samosa.

Continue reading “Book Review: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga”

Brokeback Mountain, the film of the Annie Proulx novella about the love affair between two lonesome cowboys, has inevitably sparked a series of internet jokes about life on the range.  The film would probably have the likes of John Wayne spinning in his grave (then again, Wayne’s real name was Marion Morrison).

Continue reading “Film review: Brokeback Mountain”

– Film review

An Israeli film where most of the characters are Egyptian is something other than ordinary.

When an Egyptian police band gets stuck in a small Israeli town there are all the ingredients for a comedy of errors. Stranded, with little money the eight men who are more musicans than police, spend a night with the locals. The closeness of strangers is evident as the quaint and old fashioned band members interact with their Israeli hosts.

The politics are thankfully understated allowing the humanity of the characters to take centre stage. 

The Band’s Visit has been collecting a string of film festival awards. Worthy of everyone of them.

Daphna