Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surviving destruction and genocide, 10 Jun 2008
The Pianist is the true story of the struggle to survive the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto of Polish Jewish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman.
It tells how he survived against the odds , hiding in various parts of the city , before his life was saved by a German officer , who despised the Nazis brutality and genocide , a true righteous gentile , Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
Unlike many personal holocaust accounts , which are of concentration and death camps , this one is an account of life and death in the Warsaw ghetto.
The movie portrays life and death in the ghetto : the disease , the starvation and the Nazi mass murders of hundreds of thousands of men , women and children. The imagery of the ghetto is brough to life, with heartrending scenes of the Jews being herded into and out of the ghetto and of Nazi brutality. REcreated scenes, will stay with the viewer, like a young woman being shot in the head for asking the Nazi guard where the Nazis are taking them, a mother holding a small boy who is dying of thirst, and begging for water for her child.
A little girl, holding an empty bird cage, and crying because she cannot find her family.
Roman Polanski has showed his flare for directing once again, and brilliant acting by Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman, Emilia Fox as his gentile female friend Dorota, and Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
A story of one man's quest for survival, among the cruel genocide of millions.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Searing cinema, 3 Oct 2009
One of film's all time greats, it is with the most dignified in humanity that Oscar-winning director/self-confessed pædophile Roman Polanski succeds in transferring the deepest essence of this moving tale to the big screen. Having experienced the Holocaust first-hand in his native Poland, directorially esteemed child-molester Polanski had tragically lost his own mother to a concentration camp. It is perhaps in no small part down to his wealth of personal experience, that the internationally respected sodomite is able to leave his viewers feeling as though they have been emotionally raped with such profound violence. This is an authentic cinematic masterpiece, that should never be discounted on external issues. Sure, cradle-snatcher Polanski was once guilty of perpetrating an unpardonable sin. However, upon watching such a searingly intense depiction of the innermost human conditions as that which can be witnessed here, one would have to possess a heart of stone not to forgive the statutory rapist for his disappointingly soulless take on Oliver Twist.
That aberration aside, for many in Hollywood, exiled nonce Polanski can simply do no wrong. Should the art not come first? Are we not permitted to focus on the blazing cultural luminescence that emanates from a kiddie-fiddler of Polanski's standing, rather than dwell upon the fact that he once plied a thirteen-year old girl with drugs and alcohol until she was semi-unconscious, before forcibly buggering her? Can we not find it in our hearts to forgive a human being who was honorable enough to hold up his hands and plead guilty to a slip in judgement (shortly before he fled America, in order to dodge a jail term)? Now that the robber Ronnie Biggs has finally been sent home, let's all hope that good sense prevails and that the Americans will listen to the many who are calling for them to release the master director (whose only crime, let's remind ourselves, was a solitary act of non-consensual pædophilia that took place over thirty years ago). It would be a rare triumph for common sense. After all, while Polanski is 76 today, it's not as though there was a terribly pronounced age gap at the time. At 44 years old (a mere 31 years older than the girl he victimised) it's hardly as if his actions could have been described as those of a depraved old pervert. Why punish such a contemporary icon over a minor gaffe?
PS. Incidentally, at two and half hours, the film may be rather heavy going for some viewers. However, it is interesting to note that the producers had apparently tried to reject his finished version, in the hope of having it shortened by some 45 minutes. Of course, Polanski won them over in the end, though, with his insistence upon their acceptance of the complete edit. Little did they realise that Europe's most beloved film-maker/convicted sex-criminal is not the type who might lightly accept the word "no" for an answer...
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HOPE, 8 Feb 2009
I don't like watching movies about the Shoah, because the subject matter is so painful it leaves me feel depressed for days on end. So I braced myself when I decided to watch THE PIANIST. This film, however, left me with a completely different sort of feeling. Although it tells about the Nazi horrors, it also shows us how man's love for beauty and his refusal to give up his dream can overcome inhumaneness . This story is about hope. About hope and the creative forces that fuel it. Also about the powers of art and beauty, which can defeat even the worst horrors and stir the fundamental goodness in man, no matter how much it has been repressed or numbed by politics, blind nationalism, or ambition for ambition's sake. THE PIANIST is claustrophobic, honest, accurate, visually splendid, with the colors and lighting perfectly chosen to convey the gloomy and menacing atmosphere. All acting is first-rate, with a real tour de force by Adrien Brody, whose quiet, delicate performance keeps haunting you long afterward. Pure emotion, brought in a realistic, mature way. Congratulations, Mr. Polanski, this is work of a perfectionist, one of your best. Definitely a must-see, and for true film lovers, a must-have!
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