This drama set in wartime Berlin manages to combine tension with joie de vivre

Based on the post-war memoir of Cioma Schönhaus, a Jewish survivor who worked in a Berlin munitions factory during World War II, The Forger is an intriguing deep-dive into what it is to make the best of a frankly terrifying situation.

When the film opens in 1942, it is soon apparent from an almost throwaway remark that Schönhaus's parents have already been "sent East" – the familiar euphemism for being deported to the camps, a fate he has escaped because of his essential war work. But this is the story of a young man determined to ‘live a little’, to create an illusion of normality in his life. In fact, creating illusions aptly describes his way of life, for Schönhaus (Louis Hofmann) is a talented artist and graphic designer, who soon discovers ways of exploiting this gift for the benefit of his fellow Jews – and himself. Thanks to a Nazi turned ‘conscientious objector’, a real-life man of the church, called Franz Kaufmann (Marc Limpach), he is recruited to forge the documents that Jews must carry if they are to have any chance of successful flight. He gets paid in ration cards, which he shares with his flatmate, Jewish tailor Det Kassriel (Jonathan Berlin). They soon combine their talents to morph into immaculately uniformed Nazis, complete with all the right passes and even haircuts.

It’s all a matter of confidence. Schönhaus indulges his love of the high life by eating out at restaurants serving rarities like beef and impressing girls. This is just one of the running themes employed by director Maggie Peren. On early visits to the restaurant, the polite waiter even offers flowers for Schönhaus's date, but on return visits the diminishing menu is eventually reduced to a hot chocolate, offered just as courteously with apologies for having to water it down, graciously accepted by our protagonist.

Every conversation, from boy-meets-girl talk to a Nazi official explaining he must search the flat to confiscate Jewish possessions, begins with the exclamation "Heil Hitler!" Not barked, as we are perhaps used to from dramas set in POW camps, but just as the standard, accepted greeting.

Thanks to these visits, the tension mounts, especially in Schönhaus's interactions with non-Jewish landlady Frau Peters (Nina Gummich), fraught by the unbearable stress of dreading every knock at the door. At one point there’s a very real threat she’ll throw him out, possibly understandably. She had already banned visitors by the time she catches him entertaining his new Jewish girlfriend Gerda (Luna Wedler), whom he has encountered trying to survive by exploiting her looks. The landlady relents enough to allow him to remain – on the condition he is locked in upstairs where, as she puts it, there must be no use of “taps, food, lights or toilet flushing”.

So the suspense ratchets up, the exhaustion and desperation threatens to overwhelm any remaining joie de vivre and sense of mischief and fun. The gloomy lighting and plangent klezmerisch music (courtesy of Bulgarian composer Mario Grigorov) add to the general mood. Hearing about the paranoia in recently liberated Khershon, as some suspect their fellow Ukrainians of collaboration with the Russians, The Forger feels alarmingly timely.

By Judi Herman

The Forger screens Saturday 19 November. Phoenix Cinema, London, N2 9PJ. SOLD OUT; phone for cancellations. ukjewishfilm.org

UK Jewish Film Festival runs Thursday 10 – Wednesday 23 November in cinemas and Monday 21 – Sunday 27 November online.

Read more UKJFF 2022 reviews.