Secrets And Lies.(Priceless, The Counterfeiters, Funny Games)(Movie review)

Byline: editor: Valerie Steiker

A French romp, a German thriller, and an homage to Hitchcock--this month's best films will keep you guessing. John Powers reviews.

Give a man a mask," said Oscar Wilde, "and he will tell you the truth." This paradox lies at the heart of Priceless, an unabashedly escapist French comedy about schemes, charades, and mistaken identities. Audrey Tautou stars as Irene, a gold digger who flutters between fancy hotels. One champagne-laced evening in Biarritz, she winds up in bed with the unassuming, black-tie-clad Jean (Gad Elmaleh), believing him to be rich. In fact, he's the hotel bartender, but he finds her so attractive he can't stop himself from playing along. When the truth emerges, the irate Irene takes off for the Riviera, and in a crazy move, the smitten Jean pursues her by becoming the plaything of a wealthy older woman (Marie-Christine Adam).

Priceless is the kind of graceful, old-fashioned confection that Hollywood has forgotten how to make. It is skillfully directed by Pierre Salvadori, who knows precisely the fantasy he's offering: the story of two penniless outsiders who get to frolic in a magical world of privilege, where corks never stop popping, every room has a view, and women are dressed to dazzle--it's a one-woman fashion show for Tautou. Although the film risks turning into a commercial for the good life (here the product placements are designer labels), it's humanized by its lead actors. A big comedy star in France, Elmaleh has a winning, hangdog slyness that's equal parts Jacques Tati and Hugh Grant--he makes us feel Jean's heartfelt romantic yearning. And Tautou makes Irene worthy of it. Liberated from the perma-grin cuteness of Amelie and the leaden dullness of The Da Vinci Code, she gives her most appealing performance yet as a fortune hunter who's looking for love--as well as her next new handbag.

Racing from thirties German nightclubs to Nazi concentration camps to postwar Monte Carlo casinos, Stefan Ruzowitzky's international hit The Counterfeiters is a true story that holds you like a thriller. Its disreputable hero is Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), a high-powered forger dubbed "the most charming scoundrel in Berlin" by Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow), the SS officer who arrests him. Sent to a concentration camp, the wolfish Sorowitsch has no time for high principles or solidarity with the other Jewish prisoners. He just wants to survive. He gets a break when the cheerfully slippery Herzog asks him to oversee Operation Bernhard, a massive project designed to keep Nazi Germany afloat by counterfeiting millions in Allied currency. As long as they keep the bogus money coming, Sorowitsch and his team of camp survivors will enjoy soft beds and decent food. There's just one problem: Their work will prop up the very system that's imprisoning them and wiping out their people.

The Counterfeiters shows us a world that makes a mockery of normal morality, and you find yourself asking how you'd behave in such circumstances. Would you try to sabotage Operation Bernhard, even if it meant not only your own death but the murder of all your fellow prisoners? Or would you keep printing the false banknotes and hope to defeat genocide just by staying alive? These questions grow ever harder for Sorowitsch, who discovers wellsprings of compassion and guilt he never realized he possessed. A tricky man in even trickier circumstances, he's powerfully played by ...