For me, "Doppelganger. The Double" is one of the most exciting spy thrillers that I watched since the "Game, Set and Match" TV series (1988) with the memorable Ian Holm. The reason might be that I spent part of the 1980s in Poland and another part in Germany, so I remember that time from both sides of the Iron Curtain. I saw the demonstrators being beaten with truncheons and treated with water cannons in Poland, and I was personally threatened with expulsion from my polytechnic. Then in West Germany I saw a couple of good films about the East German spies and also had a couple of colleagues who came from the DDR. One of them had spent several years in DDR jails as a political prisoner before he was bought by the West German authorities. Those DDR stories of harassment (and sometimes even cruelty) surprised or even horrified me, and I started to regard the Polish regime as a much milder form of communism. The story that was told in "Doppelganger. The Double" of sending to the BRD a communist agent instead of a real person would have been probably typical for the Stasi, but I was surprised to learn that such operations were also carried out by the Polish secret services. Knowing that it was a true story, the film was very exciting for me and kept me in suspense from beginning to end. I think that it was very well made, and I was impressed by the performance of Jakub Gierszal. He played a bad guy, but managed to show a more human or even tragic side of Jozef Wieczorek (vel Hans Steiner) too. I was moved by the scene when he was already so troubled by his conscience and doubts that he wanted to be shot. It was credible to me because even the worst villains have their human side. But in real life it was Jan Bitner (Tomasz Schuchardt) who had to play a tragic figure. Taking into account the fact that "Doppelganger. The Double" did not have a Hollywood budget, the background of Poland and Germany of that time was remarkably realistic. Being born well after WWII, I am mostly interested in times that I can remember. So for me this film is a great example of how to show interesting stories involving both Poles and Germans without insulting anybody.
