There's a certain, shall we say, moral ambiguity to current American involvement in the Middle East. This might be why movies on that topic repeatedly tank at the box office, though some decades of hindsight should prove helpful in conveying this nonetheless vital story. The Holocaust, however, with its clear definition of good and evil, generates an apparently endless supply of moving pictures, and it seems that each year brings with it another compelling angle to an oft-told tale. Austria's beautifully acted Oscar submission, "The Counterfeiters," which won the award for Best Foreign Film, chronicles the true-life ethical quandaries faced by a group of concentration-camp prisoners who subverted the Nazi effort to destroy the economies of its enemies.

We know that Salomon Sorowitsch (the mesmerizingly sketchy Karl Markovics) will survive his ordeal; as the film opens he's gambling in Monte Carlo and bedding a lovely mademoiselle who notices the numbers etched into his wrist. Most of "The Counterfeiters" is told in flashback, as the artistic skills that Sorowitsch, a Russian Jew, used in his career as a master forger sustain him through horrific conditions and eventually earn him a curious assignment at Sachsenhausen. The idea behind Operation Bernhard, still the largest counterfeiting operation in history, was to replicate both the dollar and the pound, eventually devaluing Allied currency to win World War II.

Head Nazi Herzog (David Streisow, alternately jovial and menacing), a frienemy of Sorowitsch's from their days in Berlin, assembles a team of Jewish craftsmen, providing them (comparatively) cushy accommodations but not hesitant about reminding them of their precarious station. Sorowitsch has no qualms that helping himself also means aiding the Nazis, a viewpoint not shared by former Resistance fighter Adolf Burger (August Diehl, quietly gripping), disgusted by Sorowitsch's complicity and very willing to sacrifice himself and others by sabotaging Nazi equipment.

Writer-director Stefan Ruzowitzky (1998's "The Inheritors") adapted his film from Burger's memoir "The Devil's Workshop," painting a gallery of characters - some sympathetic, some wicked - that allow for emotional investment in his narrative. Sebastian Urzendowsky's young Kolya is perhaps the most touching, but the shades of grey in which Sorowitsch and Burger operate provide the film its honest heart. Both selfish in their nobility and noble in their selfishness, each seems to respect the other's position even when they're brawling, but once survival mode kicks in there's no going back. Ruzowitzky passes no judgment on the actions of Sorowitsch or Burger, and it's a testament to the nuanced performances that we can't either.

Though he visits it occasionally to watch a game from its uppermost deck, or liberate hubcaps from its parking lot, Shea Stadium mostly looms in the background of Alejandro's immediate world, a Queens neighborhood that fixes cars by day and takes parts from them after dark. Alejandro hustles a living out of these streets, selling DVDs and learning his way around an auto body, stashing his money in a rusty coffee can to buy an obviously lemony food truck that he believes will provide a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister Isamar. Their parents are never referenced. Alejandro is 12.

Ramin's Bahrani's second feature, "Chop Shop," isn't a documentary, but it feels like one, shot on the fly with a cast made up largely of non-actors using their real names. Very much in the American neo-realist vein of Charles Burnett, children play with objects that aren't exactly toys, adults worry about themselves, and the rare moments of joy are hard-earned. The abandoned-kids setup is one that could be easily manipulative, but Bahrani doesn't expect us to feel sorry for his characters, because they certainly don't. All things being relative, they seem to understand that things could be - and probably have been in the past - much worse.

My only problem with "Chop Shop" was that its plot is too similar to that of Bahrani's debut film, "Man Push Cart," in which a man (sad-eyed Ahmad Razvi has a part in "Chop Shop" as well) saves his money for a rolling bagel shop only to be taken advantage of. Bahrani won an Independent Spirit Award for "Chop Shop" as Someone To Watch, but he needs to widen his focus a little the next time out. 

The Counterfeiters

(R), written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky

Opens Friday

Chop Shop

(NR), directed by Ramin Bahrani

Screens Saturday at the Dryden