The Forger takes place in Germany at the height of World War II, after Hitler's final solution has been implemented and just being identified as a Jew was essentially a death sentence. A handful of Jews still live in Germany, caught between a rock and a hard place: they don't have the ability or documents to leave but if they're caught they'll certainly be sent to one of the camps. They impersonate ethnic Germans. They beg, borrow, sell or steal whatever they can. They've managed to be declared unfit for military service so they avoid being sent to the front and work in a factory instead. Whatever it takes to make it from one day and one meal to the next.
Cioma is particularly skilled at navigating this precarious existence, impersonating a German soldier, for example, to earn a free meal. In physical appearance, Cioma certainly looks far more German than Jew, and even gets his hair cut in the fashion of young German soldiers. He skillfully dances from one petty con to the next. He social engineers not just the Germans but even his own friends. He brashly takes the train instead of walking to work, increasing his risk of being outed dramatically, but Cioma thumbs his nose at such dangers and seems to get a kick out of thriving within these dangerous grey areas. It's as if he believes he can simply outwit the Germans, the war and the desperation of his situation. Or perhaps his risk-taking is a form of denial: if he can make enough of his life like it was before, then he can convince himself it's not as bad as it seems. The film is clever - Cioma even had me as the viewer convinced the dangers he was dancing with weren't nearly so threatening and well within his control. Others around him warn him endlessly, but Cioma's concern barely rises above false contrition.
He comes to realize, however, that his reckless disregard has serious consequences. His antics endanger and entangle those around him. In any other time - any "normal" time - his impish fearlessness might be an asset in getting the girl or ascending the corporate ladder, but in Nazi Germany, it could get him and everyone around him killed.
I liked The Forger because it's a wartime film but not on the scale of Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now or The Thin Red line. It's not a combat film. There's no big explosions, scenes of unimaginable gore and death, or big messages about war. Those films no doubt have their place, but in this film, the war is simply reality. The right, wrong, futility of it, and so on, are questions for later. On the list of priorities, survival is at the top and that's the only thing on the list. This is a smaller, more intimate film about how a handful of survivors navigate living in a world where they might be stopped on the street at any time, say the wrong thing, or be outed by a neighbor, and the cost is their lives. It's about how a little too much pride, sympathy or loyalty at the wrong moment can mean death. And yet, despite the ever-present danger, everyone involved is doing their best to experience something approximating living, love, happiness and the small wins where they can get them.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: I've since read the autobiograhy by the same title. Highly recommended. Unsurprisingly, there's much greater depth to everything in the film but I also enjoyed the small details in the film that would probably go missed by those who haven't read the book. As just one example that doesn't spoil anything, acquiring the grommet press was a small but significant triumph in being able to scale up the forging operation.
