The Pianist [DVD] [2003]

The film begins in 1939, with Szpilman playing Chopin on the piano for Radio Warsaw, as the Germans bomb the city, and finally force him to stop playing. History has documented well what happened in Warsaw over the following two years - the Jewish ghetto was constructed and settled, racial laws were written and enforced, people died of starvation, illness, or Nazi murder. Then the "resettlement" roundups began. Szpilman was waiting at the Umshagplatz to be deported to Treblinka, with his family, when fate seemingly intervened, and he was spared. His survival story is a different kind of hell than others that I have seen or read about. Szpilman watches the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and subsequent destruction, from the outside, looking in. Usually, accounts of the Jewish uprising are from former fighters, or survivors, who were inside the ghetto at the time. I can only wonder if Szpilman longed to join his fellow Jews and fight the Nazis, rather than remain in his solitary apartment overlooking the ghetto, with his own end unknown.

The story is told from a uniquely unsentimental point of view. I felt at times that Szpilman, brilliantly portrayed by Adrien Brody, had distanced himself from all emotion, except for the periods when he played the piano in his imagination, and listened to music in his head. Perhaps this detachment was the mechanism that allowed him to survive emotionally.

The well-written screenplay, by Ronald Harwood, was adapted from Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoirs published in 1946. During some of the movie's most emotional parts, there are amazing camera shots of snow falling, or leaves blowing across an empty street, or the snow covered ghetto ruins that look like the end of the world, with the only sound - Chopin's piano music. These film takes add emotion to the film, compensate for, and contrast well with Szpilman's emotional isolation.

There is a haunting scene, near the film's end, with Szpilman and a German officer, that still moves me to tears when I think about it.

The film is a remarkable in its sensitivity, and portrayal of one man's struggle to survive. I highly recommend it.
JANA

Adrien Brody goes way beyond a performance and the film way beyond a movie. It is a masterpiece. I will never forget it.

Many of us are aware of the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jews, which the film tries to replicate in order to shock the audience, but while there are definitely some very distressing scenes, it does not have the emotional power of something like Schindler's List. That is not to say however that the film was not shocking, the scenes shot around the Ghetto capture this fear to a great success, through the actions of the Nazis and scenes of desperation among the Jews.

The shock of the early scenes seem to disappear somewhat as the film advances, it starts to shift its approach away from fear toward hope, and we observe the paranoia of the protagonist, in a way similar to Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but to a lesser degree. We watch Szpilman transform from a free, prosperous musician into a savage, desperate soul, where there seems to be no hope.

The dialogues, which occur between the characters Szpilman encounters directly and indirectly, play a central role in the film as it encompasses several more aspects and differing opinions and personalities.

The film is certainly memorable, but because it is based on Szpilman's book, there was only one central character, whereas Schlinder's List switched between several very contradictory characters forcing the viewer to make constant relations between them. The Pianist is still an admirable film, capturing a unique journey of one man, with some exceptional cinematography by Polanski.