For some, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List is the benchmark of Holocaust-themed movies. That may have changed. The Pianist, which marks the return to form of director Roman Polanski, chronicles one man’s escape from certain death into an uncertain day-to-day existence in the hell that was the Warsaw ghetto. While Schindler’s List used melodrama to pound home its points, The Pianist uses a more detached viewpoint to document the atrocities committed during World War II. Polanski’s method might just be the more effective of the two.
Adrien Brody plays Wladyslaw Szpilman, a classical pianist who played the last live music on Polish radio before the German invasion in 1939. After German bombs demolish the studio as he plays, he returns home to find his family making plans to evacuate Warsaw. As they collect their belongings, a radio broadcast announces that Britain and France have joined the war to fight Germany. Convinced that with the combined might of France and Britain on their side, the German occupation of Poland will be short-lived. They decide not to leave Warsaw.
As time passes, however, no help seems imminent and the Germans begin tightening their grip on the Jewish citizens of Warsaw. First, they ban them from certain restaurants and stores, then they ban them from parks and public benches and then make them bow to German officers in the street. Soon, Jews are to identify themselves by wearing a Star of David on their right arms. Ultimately, the Jewish inhabitants of Warsaw are forced to leave their homes and are relocated into a section of the city that is much too small to hold them all. From there, they are told they are to be “relocated” to the eastern part of Poland which, of course, means the concentration camps where they will be slaughtered en masse by the Nazis.
Szpilman manages to get work permits for his family, which he believes will exclude them from “relocation.” Unfortunately, his entire family is rounded up with hundreds of other families and forced to wait for a train that will take them to the camps. At quite possibly the last minute, Szpilman is pulled out of line by an old friend working for the German-appointed Jewish police. What follows is his journey through life on the streets of the ghetto, living hand-to-mouth, depending on strangers who are part of the resistance movement and, of course, his own survival instincts.
Even though Adrien Brody is on-screen for almost the film’s entire two and a half hour running time, the viewer does not really learn much about the man he plays. Yet his story allows the audience to see the horrors of the Warsaw ghetto on a personal level. There are no slow motion shots or overly-dramatic effects used to manipulate the viewer as events take place in Szpilman’s life in the ghetto. (One notable exception, however, is a scene where a bomb explodes near Szpilman’s home rendering him temporarily deaf. All of the sound in the scene is temporarily muted and a high-pitched whistle simulates the ringing in his ears.) At first, this detached approach seems ineffective but, as film progresses, the viewer begins to feel the weight of the proceedings on Szpilman. The continual emotional and physical torment he endures will hopefully make those who see the film take a new look at the things they might now take for granted.
Director Roman Polanski, who himself was a survivor of the Krakow ghetto, has never made a better film than this. Coupled with Academy Award-nominated cinematography by Pawel Edelman, the fantastic performance of Adrien Brody and a script culled from the true story of Szpilman’s struggle for survival, Polanski has crafted an unforgettable tale of hope in the face of total despair.
This is the first movie I’ve seen this year that I will unflinchingly say is a must-see film. I give it my highest recommendation. Don’t miss it.
5.0 out of 5.0 stars
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