Writer and Director: Maggie Peren
Tales of extraordinary daring are a feature of both contemporary and modern Second World War drama, showing an individual or underdog pitted against the Nazi machine. Based on a true story, Maggie Peren’s The Forger, showing at the UK Jewish Film Festival, is very much in this mold as a young Jewish man finds a way to ‘pass’ in German society as well as securing his own future with his forgery skills.
Factory worker Cioma Schönhaus has an exemption pass but his poor time keeping threatens his security. When the chance to produce documents for a German official comes his way, he quickly refines his forgery skills and starts applying his new-found confidence in other situations. But his landlady is already suspicious, and the authorities soon start to close in as the war itself reaches breaking point.
There is a lot of context in Peren’s movie that perhaps distracts from rather than enhances the story, and sometimes makes it difficult to understand character relationships and their intentions. For example, early in the film, there is a confusion about Cioma and who we presume is a friend, dressmaker Det Kassriel, who comes to visit but stays overnight and then seems to move in. There is more than a little homoerotic tension in their intimacy that is never resolved and soon side-lined by Cioma’s new heterosexual pursuits, before Det is entirely excise from the film until his conclusion is dramatised.
There is a clear sense of the protagonist just taking chances and, being a true story, it means the 1 hour and 50-minute running time of The Forger can feel a little episodic, even disjointed. It may be realistic portrayal of life as it happened but doesn’t always make for clear viewing. As a personality study and an amazing example of brazening things out, there is a lot to enjoy in Peren’s film even if the narrative itself is not particularly ‘tidy.’
There is also an interesting sense of the administrative backdrop for Jews continuing to work in manual occupations and needing to provide identification, while the threat of “deportation to the east” is ever-present. The claiming of Jewish property by the State, leaving Cioma with only a couple of rooms in his parents’ larger apartment is also well explained, as is the extent to which this benefitted the Party rather than ordinary German families through a subplot with the resentful landlady.
Louis Hoffman gives a vibrant central performance as Cioma, carrying the film and making sense of the changing story as Cioma starts to utilise his skills to give him access to greater privileges and the reckless confidence he develops. There is interesting support from a large secondary cast including Nina Gummich as the landlady Frau Peters, Jonathan Berlin as best friend Det and Luna Wedler as a possible girlfriend, Gerda, also trying to get by living on her wits. An interesting story about Jewish agency in the 1940s, The Forger is an alternative to the standard Second World War drama.
The UK Jewish Film Festival 2022 takes place in cinemas nationwide from 10 – 20 November, and online from 21-27 November.
