The Pianist
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Movie Reviews of The Pianist
Movie Review: This is a movie worth buying
Summary: 5 Stars
There have been many movies made about the holocaust. What does this movie add to what has already been said about the holocaust? In my opinion, many such movies understandably and justifiably emphasize realism and factual represention of events. Unfortunately, many directors do not have the skill to realistically depict hope under such circumstances. For example, Spielberg's Schindler's List resorts to rather sophomoric narrative devices in its depiction of hope in the face of adversity. When the list is first generated, we see Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley desperately thinking of name after name of people to save. There is a build-up that felt like a scene in the locker room of the underdog team before the big game, or the "you can do it" speeches given to someone who's failed at something in the past. It is typical Spielberg and it makes you feel like cheering Schindler on. And, in the end, when Schindler laments he should have saved more, there is a sense of artifice and overdramatization. This was not the holocaust. There was no cheering and overdramatization. People were scared for their lives, alone, focused on self-preservation, acting in secrecy and desparation. The mood of Schindler's List overall was certainly sad and the scenes "realistic", but I felt that Spielberg oversimplified and overdramatized the emotions and some events in order to emphasize hope. It is this over-emphasis of hope that undermines Schindler's List, because it feels forced. In The Pianist, no such simplification occurs. This is an uncomprising, unflinching view of terrible events in one man's life that sustains hope for survival without phony plot devices and oversimplification. It is somewhat documentary in style, without very much dialogue, special effects, or forced dramatization. The events unfold simply, without artifice, and without prejudice. If Spilzman died it would seem natural and expected given his circumstances. The fact that he survives is exhilirating. This holocaust movie reveals the goodness in human nature in the face of the most terrible atrocities realistically and without compromise. That has not been achieved in past holocaust movies very often or very succesfully..The DVD itself is well designed. The special features are interesting and revealing. The video and sound transfers are excellent.
Movie Review: A Bleak World Without Music Is Very Bleak Indeed
Summary: 5 Stars
Roman Polanski's simply outstanding film on the life of Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Polish Jew and genius pianist who finds his love of Chopin and everything dear assaulted and destroyed by Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939. A film based on the true life of Szpilman with an incredible screenplay, magnificent direction, first class acting, and great cinematography all combined together by Polanski's brilliant skills as a director. This film deserved every Oscar it received.
Not only does the film bring out the atrocious reality Poland encountered in WWII under Nazi occupation but it also shows the subleties of human nature in times of privation and war. It shows that even in the bleakest of moments the human spirit is deprived indeed without art or music. The film shows that human suffering is not merely a product of political ideology such as Nazism but more of individual evils that are not particular to race, nation, or religion. Polanski demonstrates that Poland's misery was caused just as much by spineless Jewish and Christian collaborators as it was by the Nazis themselves. The story also shows that many German officers were not the setereotypical Nazi thugs as shown in Spielberg's films but men of conscience trapped into an insanity that had gone beyond anyone's control and that could only be resolved through total war.
This is simply a triumphant presentation by an extremely talented director. Polanski's recreation of the Polish uprising is outstanding and shows the horror that Poland suffered throughout the war. Few people realize that although approximately 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, half of them were Polish and Poland lost an additional 2-3 million non-Jewish citizens making Poland equal in its losses than the Jewish peoples as a whole: Warsaw was virtually razed to the ground during the uprising! I give my complements to him for depicting this little known fact with subtle yet powerful imagery. Again, this is simply an outstanding film and certainly one of the best dramas on WWII and the Nazi atrocities in Poland in particular. The film is a powerful vehicle in depicting a man's will to survive and his retaining both his humanity and hope through his love of classical music and the piano. Don't miss this brilliant film!
Movie Review: Music is the Human Language of the Soul
Summary: 5 Stars
Today, sadly, in our scientific and sterile approach to life, we often attempt to connect and relate the human being to the animal kingdom. This experiment is a false and dangerous road. They are two very different entities. The Nazi Germans succesfully convinced tha masses (over 200 million supporters throughout the world) that a Jew is a sub-human, less than an animal. Throughout Europe the Jews were, unilaterally, deprived of their membership in the human race. No voice, no religion, no words, no hope, and no song. They were hoarded, robbed, and immorally butchered. Man, woman and child. No picture can replay the factual horror. The Jews were known as a people of family, of values, of morals and of traditions based on the Bible. The Germans removed from them their history, their past and forced them to become slaves of the so-called civilized world. The Germans tattoo'd their human skin and burned the skeletons of those "used up" and he ordered them murderd. In this film, we see how one human, born a Jew, watches his own family enslaved, escaping by his personal belief, in music, in his piano, and thereby sustains himself in the face of the surrounding horrible consequnces and certain death. For the Germans, Western classical music is seen as still being a vocabulary of their human race, a trace of their humanity, that somehow serves as a frail but evident bridge between their animal hatred, their evil, and the ultimate good, found in the universal lnaguage of the innocent, music. The film is an excellent portrayal of this concept and how music can and did evoke a human emotion, a sane response, from certain individual guardians of the fires of Hell. Animals do not play the piano. In this film Mr. Polanski has also, unconsciouly, touched on the continuing theme throughout history. How incomplete and too often, unsuccesful, is the Jewish family and its individual Jewish member, as a moral and good Jew, in being an accepted part of the non Jewish society. Too often the music is raised to a higher podium that the human being. This film speaks on behalf of the many millions, most who cannot and will never speak or sing. May their souls in Heaven pray for each of us, in these times where Evil is again challenging mankind and our civilzation.Movie Review: stunning
Summary: 5 Stars
Whew, is this some movie. It's a serious drama and doesn't seem very much like a "movie" after 10 minutes, its filled with sadness and desperation and horrible scenes that stay in your mind for time to come. but dont get me wrong, its one of the best movies of the year, and movies of this substance rarely get mad. if you liked schindlers list, youll love this. The Story of Wladyslaw Szpielman, A world famous Polish Pianist who happens to be stuck in the circumstance of being Jewish..during the Holocaust, right at the time when the Germans want to start the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, the most notorious area where jews were held during ww2.
taken from being a pianist, and turned into a hopeless man, Szpielman lives and dies in his rebirth and life in short existences again and again being terribly afraid of the germans.The movie traces the arc from Szpilman's pre-war days as a comfortable and already famous cultural figure in Poland through to the end of the war.
there is so much tension running throughout this movie,mostly because we know what a horrible fate the characters are going to endure...and see....and its so painful to watch, its one man's journey to hell shown from his eyes very realistically....the director's mother was also executed at auschwitz and he escaped..he finds some hope in telling this story of great suffering.
Szpilman is shown as a survivor from day to day trying to stay alive and getting ready for his end, he isnt shown as a fighter or a hero.
the film is technically brilliant, directed by the famous roman polanski. adrien brody as the main character DESERVES an oscar....i cannot say enough, one of the best acting ive seen in years...he disintegrated from a upright moral somewhat rich man to a homeless bum right in front of our eyes...not by makeup and costume alone but by his eyes..and mannerisms..it truly is a heartbreaking performance and film...such powerful films takes guts to make...and it should be seen...if you dont like moving dramas or want action or excitement or the rhythm of an avg hollywood movie,..your not going to like this..but if its the opposite..youll love it
its a true story.
A portrait of hell so shattering it's impossible to shake.
Movie Review: How to Survive Holocaust... (4.5 stars)
Summary: 5 Stars
There is no object lesson in how to survive something so horrible as the genocide of Jews in WWII, but the story of Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman definitely deserved to be told. Born in 1911, in his early 30's he escaped Holocaust and somehow scraped along during the uprising in the Jewish ghetto, down through the gruesome near-end war days in his beloved, destroyed Warsaw. Afterwards he wrote a book about his ordeal, which his son had published in 1999, one year before Szpilman's death.If he lived two years on, he would have seen his story filmed.
Shot by controversial French director of Polish birth Roman Polanski (himself a Holocaust survivor), this French-Polish-British-German-Dutch cooperation (2002) became a hit with critics and viewers alike and scored a shower of prizes and awards, including three Oscars.
The focus on one single person prevents "The Pianist" to be so emotionally sweeping as "Schindler's List", nevertheless, the performance New Yorker Adrien Brody breathes to Szpilman's character is stunningly wide-spectral, worthy of his Oscar. Also the cinematography manages to offer not a few stunning shots -- one comes when Szpilman walks the deserted city covered with snow.
The film is a special treat for those who like piano music of Fryderyk Chopin -- if they are able to watch the many depicted horrors of senseless cruelty. The movie begins with a historic moment of Germans bombing the Polish radio in September 1939 when Szpilman was in studio, recording Chopin's posthumously published Nocturne in C sharp minor. Symbolically, the broadcasting after the war began with the same performer and the same work. But really show-stopping are some other piano scenes of the movie.
Thematically, the film offers nothing new -- topic of Jewish plight is frequent especially in European film-making tradition. Also recommended is the Czech film "Divided We Fall" (2000) and Czecho-Slovak cooperation "The Shop On The Main Street" (1965).
For a person in a civilised country, watching "The Pianist" should also be a disturbing experience. It's about the time when people were losing faith, seeing the evil prevail. It's another warning about what war does to (and with) people.