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THE PIANIST Send This Review to a Friend
No matter how many films dealing with World War II and the Holocaust you have seen, prepare for a new one that's special. Director Roman Polanski's "The Pianist," the top award winner at Cannes last Spring and my choice for the best film of 2002, is a harrowing, relentlessly moving saga of survival, all the more powerful because it depicts the true story of Polish-Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who wrote an autobiography on which Polanski's film is based, as is the screenplay by Ronald Harwood. This is a monumental job of filmmaking from the production achievements alone, but beyond that, it goes to the heart of courage in the face of unbridled evil and humanity in the midst of ruin. Adrien Brody gives a magnificent performance in the demanding role of Szpilman.
The early part of the film is the most difficult to take because it is the most chilling. Szpilman, who plays in Warsaw for Polish radio, is interrupted by a German air attack at the start of the war and reluctantly flees the station. With his family as the focal point, we witness the tightening of restrictions against the Jews, the establishment of the ghetto and the deprivations there and the beginning of the mass deportations. The random brutality and executions are startling. A mere question can lead to a bullet through the head. There are vicious beatings in the street. There is the whole degrading desperation to survive, leading to some Jews being used to keep others in line and make the persecutions and deportations go more smoothly. Specific, convincing characterizations make what's depicted all too credible.
Once Szpilman escapes deportation by rescue even as he is trying to keep up with his family being whisked away on a death-camp bound train, the story tracks his survival by means of hiding, aid from underground fighters, help from a sympathetic Polish woman and her husband and sheer ingenuity. The end is always potentially around the corner, and at one point he is hidden in an apartment from which he can see part of the Warsaw ghetto resistance and the Nazi attack. Polanski brilliantly creates this world for us, but always concentrating of the pianist's personal struggle.
The suspense is tense throughout, and just when it looks as if Szpilman might survive, new perils confront him. But one Nazi officer shows a human streak as the dreams of conquest collapse in the face of advancing Soviet troops and the desolation of ruins all around. He is deeply touched by Szpilman's playing. By the film's end there is both the gratification at the musician's personal victory, and an uplifting satisfaction that despite all of the horrors, an aspect of humanity has survived.
Strengthening the film is the use of music that enhances the subject matter, even including a recorded sampling of actual playing by Szpilman, who died in 2000 at the age of 88. Polanski, who grew up and began his film career n Poland, has said he had long wanted to make a film about this era, but did not want to do an autobiography. When he came upon Szpilman's story, he believed this gave him the right opportunity. He has certainly succeeded, and "The Pianist" becomes a vital contribution to the cinema depicting that horrendous period of history.
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