The Pianist

The Pianist
by Roman Polanski

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Movie Reviews of The Pianist

Movie Review: An Amazing Survival Story
Summary: 5 Stars

Wladyslaw Szpilman was born in 1911 in Sosnowiec, Poland. He studied Piano as a young boy and in 1931, continued his development at the Academy of Music in Berlin. He composed several pieces for piano and orchestra, and quickly began to be considered a promising composer and virtuoso, becoming very popular in his homeland as a result of his work. As a young man, Szpilman began working for the Polish state radio station and it is there that the story begins.

The camera begins to roll and we see the employees of the radio station acting out their daily routines with an aura of unsuspecting calm. Suddenly, as Szpilman is performing, the sounds of bombs crashing to the ground can be heard in the distance. Before long, the distant sounds become a shocking reality as the building begins to shake and debris begins falling on Szpilman and his piano. The air raids had begun. Warsaw, the capitol of Poland, was one of the first targets of the German Luftwaffe.

Shortly thereafter, the Nazis marched inside the city and by December 1st, 1939, and Warsaw Jews soon find themselves forced to wear distinguishing armbands with the Star of David on them. Tolerance of all things Jewish disappeared completely and thus began the brutal campaign to subject the Jewish population to unimaginable terror: all property and funds were confiscated; food was rationed to inhumane levels; all sidewalks, benches, buses, and parks were forbidden to anyone Jewish. Surprisingly, Szpilman seems to take a nonchalant attitude toward the events transpiring before his eyes at first; but that attitude does not last very long. Feeling like a hunted animal, Szpilman is then reduced to live with a fight-or-flight mentality and paranoia. He becomes completely detached from all things superficial and is forced to rely on the most basic survival instincts and stoic reserves. Should he by chance encounter any type of pleasure at all, the moment is relished with extreme passion. Reduced to existing simply as a hunter/gatherer, his only concern is making it through the day without dying; and Polanski capitalizes on this desperation to captivate you.

For example, in a scene where Szpilman is hiding in an apartment filled with pro-Nazi, non-Jewish tenants, we see Szpilman sit at a piano. For his own safety, he is to remain as silent as possible; but then, we see him in a head-and-shoulders shot, shoulders moving. You hear piano music and gasp as we fear his love and longing for music is about to give him away; and then we see his hands moving in the air just above the keyboard and realize, with both relief and a stitch of regret, that the music is only in Szpilman's head.

Another example is a scene in the movie where a German commander stops a group of Jews going to work, with whom Szpilman is among, and randomly asks several of them to lie down. While the others stand in horror watching, the German shoots them all in the head except for the last one because his magazine is then empty. Unlike the German soldier in Schindler's List who ends up letting the person live under a similar circumstance because his gun jams, Polanski's soldier reloads the gun and shoots the man. The camera captures these horrific events intrepidly, far detached from them. Yet this detachment is a benefit to the film because it adds to the ghastly, ruthless realism of the story.

Then there are scenes that are so callous they take you by surprise. Such as when a Nazi tells an elderly man in a wheelchair to stand up and the man doesn't respond. Shockingly, the Nazi picks up the wheelchair and throws the man off a balcony.

The film's best scene, in my opinion, is a scene that occurs when Szpilman encounters a Nazi officer in an abandoned house. Devoid of sentimentality, beautifully directed, it is simply a mosaic of shots of Szpilman playing Chopin on the piano and the officer watching. Yet it is also a scene that ironically symbolizes and encapsulates Szpilman's experience itself. The German officer is not an enemy or a ruthless brute, but a human being, who by circumstance, is in the position to save or kill Szpilman, who by circumstance, is completely helpless.

Szpilman's character is brilliantly played by Adrian Brody, who won the Oscar for Best Actor for this film. It must be difficult to command the screen when your character often must be acquiescent, deliberately trying not to draw attention to himself in order to keep from falling into Nazi hands; but Brody pulls it off. It helps that Brody has utterly mastered the art of acting with his eyes. Additionally, his body language speaks volumes, and these nonverbal cues are crucial to filling in the emotional cracks; especially in scenes where Szpilman, alone and in hiding, can't speak or even move around much for fear of giving himself away.

Roman Polanski produced and directed the film, and like Brody, also won an Oscar for this film for Best Director. The Pianist is an extraordinary milestone for Polanski, who himself survived the Nazi Holocaust. I suspect it is because of this fact that Polanski's film, for me, has an edge over several other holocaust films. The directing in this film is fearless, honest and it does not settle for easy answers; rather, it shows us a true story without adjudicating any of the characters or the situation within which they coexist. It simply unfolds and it is in this simplicity that lies its impact.

Wladyslaw Szpilman survived this historic tragedy by the grace of the Almighty, joining His presence in the year 2000.

Summary of The Pianist