The Pianist Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)December 30th, 2002
THE PIANIST
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The Szpilman family rejoices to hear that Great Britain and France have joined the war and Poland is no longer alone, but soon thereafter they've been moved to a 'new' apartment and watch in horror as the wall which will define the Warsaw Ghetto is erected outside their window. Only one of them, Wladyslaw (Adrien Brody, "Summer of Sam"), will survive in Roman Polanski's 2002 Palme d'Or winner, "The Pianist."
Polanski is quick to establish Wladyslaw's determination not to be silenced by his continuing to play Chopin as the recording studio he inhabits is destroyed by German bombs. Brody quietly and confidently inhabits Szpilman in one of the best and most rigorously sacrificial (Brody both learned to play the piano and lost 30 pounds for the role) performances of the year. Polanski, bringing his own Holocaust survival memories to the table, has made his best film since 1974's "Chinatown."
As adapted from Szpilman's book by Ronald Harwood ("Cry the Beloved Country"), "The Pianist" is divided into three sections. In the first the Szpilman family is established - loving, genteel parents (Frank Finlay, "Dreaming of Joseph Lees" and Maureen Lipman, "Solomon and Gaenor"), rash older brother Henryk (Ed Stoppard, "The Little Vampire"), sensible sister Regina (Julia Raynor, "Topsy-Turvy") and charming younger sister Halina (Jessica Kate Meyer). The closeness of the family is underlined when Henryk and Halina, who had been weeded out of the passengers being sent to Treblinka, choose to rejoin the family instead. The film's understated ability to wrench the heart is effected when Wladyslaw simply tells Halina that he wished he knew her better. The horrors, like a woman wailing on the platform because she suffocated her baby attempting to keep it quiet in their hiding place, are more effective for Polanski's shooting them on a fabulously bright, sunny day.
This act is closed when Wladyslaw is saved by former friend Itzak Heller (Roy Smiles), now a Nazi collaborator working as an auxiliary policeman. Polanski just moves on - the other members of the Szpilman family are never referred to again and their erasure is all the more poignant for it. Szpilman's luck works again when an old colleague and her husband hide him in an apartment from which he can view the Ghetto uprising, but a profiteering pal leaves him for weeks at a time with no food. A noisy accident uncovers his presence to nosy neighbors and Szpilman is forced to evacuate. He's hidden again, but eventually the starving man joins the living dead who wander the shell of a bombed out city in a bleak winter landscape. Nested in the attic of an abandoned manse, Szpilman is discovered by a German officer (Thomas Kretschmann, "U-751," providing able support), who feeds and clothes him in appreciation of his musical talent.
"The Pianist" will constantly be compared to "Schindler's List," but where that film accentuated its horrors, this one instills them more deeply by presenting their everydayness. A family of six share one caramel before being scattered to the winds. A woman crumples in the street, shot. An old man curries favor by playing the fool and the Germans so enjoy his mugging and scraping they force an entire group of Jews to dance in the street.
Technically, the film has a bright crystalline quality beginning with Pawel Edelman's stunning deep focus photography. His work is so crisply detailed that during Szpilman's impromptu concert for Captain Hosenfeld he captures light shining through the cartilage of Brody's nose, emphasizing the man's etherealness. Sound (Jean-Marie Blondel) is also notable as Szpilman catches conversations next door, or walks through a hole in a wall, his ears muffled and ringing from the blast. Visual effects include terrific matte work to convey Warsaw's devastation.
"The Pianist" is a powerful achievement, an epic tale of a musical survivor that's strength lies in its hushed tone.
A
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