Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 17 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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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Grueling film about surival in the Warsaw ghetto, 27 Feb 2009
I hadn't heard of the story before or the fact it was a true story. I tend to steer clear of films which boast it is a true story as it can sometimes give that as an excuse not to be so inventive.
This was an exception as the story was so gruelling. I have read plenty about the Nazis and the second world war so none of it was new to me but Polanski has brought it home to those who either dint know the story of the Warsaw ghetto and the treatment of the jews. It is a bit like when Schindler's list became a film people who took no interest in the second world war all of a sudden started telling me about it as though it had just become news. It makes you wonder what the Germans hoped to achieve by consistently murdering the civilian population. In a purely businesslike way they were wasting resources that could havebeen used to win the war.
By following the life of one individual it brings it home The grip of the Germans on Warsaw and in particular the jews became stronger and stronger.
He eventually escapes from the ghetto as it is being emptied and the Germans then burn it down. They start on the rest of Warsaw as there is an uprising.
It becomes more and more grueling but he survives.
He lives to fight another day after being helped by a German officer who ends up as a prisoner of the Russians and dies in Russia in 1952 that is seven years after the war.
It is the gradual stripping people of their humanity and the brutality of the actions that is so shocking so in the end no one is immune. You wonder how anyone would survive with their mind and body intact let alone being able to play the piano.
It is a good film as it reminds people of the inhumanity of the Nazis and the fact there were people who would help. It also shows how the jews got gradually sucked into their fate and no one could help them.
The whole machinery took a lot of complicity by various people for it to happen. When the war finished a lot of people claimed they did not know it was going on.
As another review says it is not a film you would want to put yourself too often as it is so searing but a good film and deserved all the praise it got
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4 of 4 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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