The Pianist Review
by Jerry Saravia (faust668 AT aol DOT com)February 14th, 2003
THE PIANIST (2002)
Review by Jerry Saravia
February 13th, 2003
RATING: Four stars
The Holocaust remains a time and place that I will never forget. It is as odious and horrendous a time as almost any other in the 20th century. No, I am not a Holocaust survivor (too young to be one) but my interest in the era has never dwindled. I still remember going to elementary school and hearing a Holocaust survivor describe her experiences in the camps and her need for survival - her words surged through the hearts of everyone in the audience. Lately we have been bombarded with so many films covering that time from every aspect. We have seen "Life is Beautiful," "Jakob the Liar," "The Grey Zone," dozens of documentaries and, of course, Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," which renewed interest in the subject all over again. And in case anybody thinks I had forgotten Lina Wermuller's "Seven Beauties" or Agnieszka Holland's "Europa, Europa" or the harrowing "Night and Fog" by Alan Resnais, then you are sadly mistaken. Now comes Roman Polanski's "The Pianist," which stands as an excellent film about survival in the most inhumane of times.
Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is a popular pianist of classical works by composers like Chopin. He is living in Warsaw with his family, and mostly performs for a radio station. Then the bombs start dropping over the city, though Szpilman has no interest in leaving the city. The whole family assumes that the Nazis will be defeated by the Allied troops in one swift stroke. This is not to be as the Nazis start claiming their control in the city, forcing the Jews to wear armbands, shooting some without provocation, and entering their homes without warning. One scene shows Szpilman's father being forced to walk on the gutter as opposed to the streets. Szpilman himself cannot enter the local cafe where Jews are not allowed. He feels himself being drawn into a tight corner with no escape. The Jewish police are sometimes more brutal though they can offer help for the right price. Eventually, Szpilman's family is taken away in the trains to the concentration camps whereas he is forced to go to labor camps. Then more bombs are dropped. He soon finds himself occupying flats from friends in the Polish resistance, sleeping in closets, and then he is left wandering the streets of Warsaw which looks like a battlefield of ruins. This one shot alone has more power and resonance than anything found in "Schindler's List," as we see Szpilman walking with a limp among the eroded buildings and miles of rocks in the distance.
The film also tightens you into a corner as Polanski draws us closer to the levels of frustration and hopelessness in Szpilman's condition. He gets sick, enervated, and practically starves to death, living on whatever he can find in nearly decimated houses and hospitals. Just when he thinks he is alone, a German officer finds him inside one of those houses. The officer asks Szpilman to play the piano in exchange for food and his coat. By the end of the film, we discover that Szpilman's own survival is all we need to move on, but can he ever forget what he has seen? The numerous executions and bomb blasts on the streets? The wheelchaired man thrown out of a third-story flat? The sight of his parents being led to their own deaths?
"The Pianist" is an amazing achievement as it shows one man's observation of war through windows and crevices. This subjective viewpoint of looking through mirror surfaces has become du jour for Polanski ever since "Cul-De-Sac." Polanski does not spare us the brutality nor does he lessen or abbreviate the horror. What is most amazing is that we see how one man survived with some help, and how the enemy is not always as unfriendly as one might think. That a Nazi with a loving family (as shown in one shot of a picture frame on his desk) would help a Jew during the last few days before the war was over is testament to the irony and honesty of a war one often deems as black-and-white. This is not fiction since it is based on Szpilman's own autobiography, and it tells us that evil sometimes has a human face after all.
Adrien Brody lost weight to play the role, and he does a remarkable job of showing the various states of weakness and despair in Szpilman. He looks like a wrecked creature with puppy dog eyes, merely looking to survive and not get shot. It is a performance based solely on body language and facial expressions. It works quite well since Polanski gives us a nearly wordless last hour of silences and gestures in what remains the most potent section of the whole film.
"The Pianist" reminds us that thousands of personal stories exist during the Holocaust, and some are as scary and ironic as this one is. Finally, it is also a reminder that Roman Polanski has not lost his touch - his version of the Holocaust is at times as horrific and dramatically intense as some of his own great classics like "Repulsion" and "Rosemary's Baby." Many films about the Holocaust are likely to stay with you, but few have the honesty and verve of "The Pianist."
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