The Pianist Reviews

• Polanski's Paean to Poland

  
  By A1NPNGWBVD9AK3 on 2003-04-05
  After suffering through the excruciating experience of viewing "The Ninth Gate", I despaired that a once creative and vital director had lost his touch.

  "The Pianist" more than compensates for that chaotic, unintended farce. Polanski has let the world know loud (and I do mean that literally and figuratively) and clear that he still possesses the artistic goods.

  This is his first film since "Knife in the Water" to be set in his native Poland. His feeling for his native land rings forth in every frame. From the music of Chopin, to the scenes of the Warsaw trains on their way to Treblinka, packed to the absolute extreme with their human cargo, Polanski lets us experience, practically first hand, what it meant in the late 30s, early 40s, to be a Jew in Warsaw. It was precisely the wrong thing to be at precisely the wrong time in human history.

  Whereas the other great Holocost movie of recent years "Schindler's List" relies so heavily on visual representation (though it does have a moving soundtrack), Polanski combines brutal images with high decibal sound to stun and startle us into a deeper, more visceral understanding of what the title character, Wladyslaw Szpilman, experienced as a young artist in WWII Poland. During one scene, a bomb explodes so loudly that I actually thought for a few seconds that my hearing had been damaged, as a ringing noise on the soundtrack synchronizes with Szpilman's gesture as he winces and cups his ear with his hand . That's about as visceral as I want to go in a cinema experience. It's also one aspect that wont be as effective at home, unless one is blessed with a state of the art sound system.

  While this film is exceedingly stark, grim and shocking (you will understand from where the term "shock troops" derives), it also contains moments of great beauty and humanity. Even in moments of the most extreme deprivation and isolation, a human hand comes to Szpilman's assistance and helps him survive.

  Oscar awards were certainly deserved for both Polanski and Adrian Brody (Best Actor). It is essentially their film. Though the supporting roles are well played, Brody is in every scene of the film, so it is his to carry. It is a bravura performance. He never overacts or overreacts. He subtly displays the gradual despair and increasing horror as Warsaw crumbles around him.

  No matter how one feels about Polanski, personally, "The Pianist" proves that he remains among the top ten directors of his generation. This love letter to his native land is tinged with tears, a combination which renders it amazingly effective.
  
  

• Better Than Schindler's List

  
  By on 2003-06-14
  There have been many films over the years dealing with the Holocaust and the atrocities in Europe during the Second World War. The best known of course is, Schindler's List. While Schindler's List will be the film by which all other films about this dark period of history will be judged, it has met its match in The Pianist. While Schindler gave us the viewers the story of one very flawed man who saved many lives in the guise of Jewish Labor, The Pianist is far different. The story of one man who managed to survive Warsaw during the Occupation and was ultimately the reciepant of some kindness from the most unlikely person,a German solider. The difference between the two films is that while Schindler's took a rather aneseptic and 'Hollywood' view of the flawed man Oskar Schindler, The Pianist drew on the real life experiences of its director to make the film much more personal. It not only becomes personal to the director himself, but to the viewer. Polanski himself was a boy during the Occupation, injected small things that he remembered during the Occuapation into the film. Little things like someone telling Spzilman not to run as he is pulled from the lines of people, including his family, being forced into cattle cars on their way to a certain death.It is things like this that bring the viewer closer to the characters and even to the director. Adrien Brody gave the performance of his life in this film. It deserved every Oscar it got and it is a true masterpiece to be treasured.
  
  

• Brilliant and ultimately redemptive

  
  By ABN5K7K1TM1QA on 2004-01-08
  It's hard to watch this film and not think of the situation in the Middle East today. What is worse, being stuffed into cattle cars and sent to death camps or being blown up by suicide bombers (or bulldozed by machines of steel)? For me the answer to this strangely relevant question is the former. I know that the old Jewish Defense League that I recall from my college days, whose slogan was something like, "Never Again," would agree and so would most of the population of Israel. I think the terrorist Islamic groups ought to be required to view this film and/or some others like it on what happened to the Jews in Europe during the time of the Nazis so that they might have a better appreciation of why they will never be able to overrun Israel and why the United States continues to support Israel even while questioning some of Sharon's policies.

  Director Roman Polanski tells the familiar horror tale, this time with a concentration on the Jews of Warsaw and in particular on the famed pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman. (The screenplay by Ronald Hardwood is based on Szpilman's memoir). Polanski spares us none of the brutality or the sadomasochism that is an inevitable interpretation of the events. He has the Jews meekly acquiesce to the increasingly horrific Nazi demands, and then has them just lie down when told to and accept a bullet through the skull.

  (Actually the vast majority of the Jews were not shot, of course, since the bullets were too costly and needed elsewhere. Indeed, as long as I am doing an aside, the stupidity of the Nazis in wasting their resources in genocide contributed to their losing the war. Small irony. But of course that was a war they could not win anyway. If by some magic they could have gotten the Jews--especially Jewish physicists--to work for them, that would have been their only chance, which once again demonstrates the self-destructive nature of Hitler and his followers.)

  Polanski shows us the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis and he even has a Jewish boy in the compound as they await the cattle cars selling candy at inflated prices, and then later a Nazi who talks to his Jewish workers about trading goods and says, rubbing his fingers together, "That's what you're good at, isn't it?"

  It is interesting to compare The Pianist with Vittoria De Sica's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), an entirely different sort of film, but one with a similar theme and some similar scenes as the Jews, this time Italian Jews, are loaded into the cattle cars. The experience in these films is always the same for me in at least one respect. I want so much to shout: "Do something! Don't let it happen! Charge them with the sheer mass of your bodies, if nothing else. Better to die fighting than to die like cattle." But of course I was not there. We think we know what we would do, but unless we are confronted with the actual situation, we don't know. And of course we have hindsight.

  At one point, Szpilman and his brother are talking as they eat their thin soup and their bread. The brother tells him that the cattle cars are going to Treblinka but they return empty and that there are no cars containing food that go that way. He concludes, "They are exterminating us."

  Polanski's point is that the Nazis were able to actually commit their ghastly mass murders (and the German populace to excuse them) because they had come to believe that Jews were not human and that they were only killing vermin. The Jews had been demonized, which is the first step toward genocide. We declare that our enemies are not human, and that allows us to kill them with moral impunity. I had a new thought while I watched this time, thinking: a respect for animals and a belief in animal rights might serve as a moral buffer so that when one group of people hate each other and begin to turn the other into animals, they will still have a step to go before they can begin the mass murders.

  It is in the second half when Szpilman goes into hiding that Polanski's film distinguishes itself. Here the focus is entirely on Szpilman and his need to survive. The cinematography of the Warsaw streets, the apartments he lives in, the snow, the gray buildings, the people below in the streets, the hunger, the music that he hears in his mind but cannot play, the burned-out buildings, and then the scene in which the German officer says, "Play something" and he does. It is here that the film becomes magical and a testament to the best that is in humans. Note that the pianist has become in his beard and his persecution a Christ-like figure who never raised a hand against anyone. He is the Christ who turned the other cheek. And note that it is his ethereal talent as a great musician that saves him. This is Polanski's message and the reason he made the film. The best that is in humans can rise above the brute that is in humans.

  See this for Adrien Brody, who gave it everything he had, and then some. His performance will haunt you. Polanski's clear, Hollywood-like, almost Spielbergian direction, tells the story a bit too brightly at times, and a bit too simplistically at others, but he has planned well so that in the end we see that he has told it brilliantly. For those who have never actually had the details of the Holocaust acted out for them, this will be quite an eye-opener and a chilling, depressing and deeply disturbing experience. And see it because we need to be reminded of what can happen when we give way to hate and prejudice.
  
  

• Mesmerizing,Incredible,Must See

  
  By A1FZMCVUBXZ4MH on 2003-02-11
  I have a PhD in history and have been a student of WW2 for a number of years. This film was so gripping that NO ONE moved from their seats. There was NO TALKING, NO COUGHING. The theatre was absolutely silent and at the end NO ONE got up to leave.
  This is because this film is so incredibly well done that you cannot help but become personally involved. It is a true story as well. I urge everyone who wants to see what life under the 3rd Reich was like in their Eastern Conquests to see this. Not only are Jews murdered indiscriminately, it also shows the effects on Poles and the scenes of a destroyed Warsaw stop you in your tracks.
  When you leave this film, you will know you have seen one of the finest films EVER made, Polanski's masterpiece. It tells of events that are changed from words into visual scenes, and individual people. The effect is awesome. Please go see it.
  
  

• The Real Thing

  
  By AKSCA0P2Y4QRU on 2002-10-03
  Almost a documentary.

  This movie is true to the life story of Szpilman, the pianist, and almost to the letter follows the book Szpilman wrote. The only major licencia poetica I noticed is the placement of Szpilman's hideout in the routinely destroyed and totally deserted city - a result of the two uprisings: in 1943 and most definitely that of 1944 - at the very same building that the good natured German officer selected for army offices.

  Polanski wanted the true and most dramatic story to speak for itself and on purpose gave up on these well known movie tricks that make less powerful stories squeeze our tears so generously in the movie theaters. To be honest - this is a pity. A real story AND a popular touch make for the most effective works. But perhaps I understand Polanski's reasons for this and I certainly respect them. You just do not want any semblance between depiction of tragedy of such proportions and the regular every year productions. And also - Polanski was part of the drama of 1939-1945, living not further than two hundred miles from the place where the Pianist lived and survived, too.

  "The Pianist" has a feel of a documentary. The movie structure - a series of glimpses of Szpilman's life, each of them grabing your total attention, because each of them is almost more than an average human being experience in a whole life, at least as most of us know life today. A word said, the timing of entering a staircase, a positioning taken in a row of forced laborers is a decision - or - a circumstance of life and death consequences.

  Being from that country I will not dodge the sensitive issue. There are many bad people and some good people in this true story. There are many good Jews, and some bad Jews. There are many good Poles, and many bad Poles. There are many bad Germans and one good German. The last one stands out. Courtesy of that "national background" his decent acts - not killing Szpilman (a heroism in pure form it is not), and giving him food and a coat stand out.

  I watched this movie at 9:15 a.m. in a cinema filled with youngsters sent by the schools. The silence in the room, all over those 130 minutes or so, was stunning.
  
  

• A moving story of courage and the fierce will to survive.
  By AC1K4OQOZ90RS on 2003-03-27
  Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" is the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a brilliant young pianist who lives with his family in Poland when the Germans march in and take over the country. Szpilman and his family struggle to survive under increasingly difficult conditions, and through their eyes we experience the increasingly tight noose that the Nazis wrap around the neck of the Polish Jews. Soon, the Nazis herd the Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto, and ultimately, into cattle cars headed for concentration camps.

  It was a fluke that Szpilman did not go with his family to the camps. He went into hiding in Poland and was helped by some compassionate people who kept him alive with meager amounts of food and drink. However, he suffered horrifying days and nights of fear and loneliness and it is a miracle that he did not go mad. It is clear that Szpilman's love of music (he played the piano in his mind) helped keep him going during his ordeal.

  Polanski direction is fine, although he breaks little new thematic ground in this film. What makes this movie special is the superb performance of Adrien Brody, who plays Szpilman with restraint and great sensitivity. Brody captures Szpilman's obsession with his music as well as his desperate struggle to survive each day, knowing that it might be his last. Brody's transformation from a dapper and poised professional into a starving and desperate refugee is amazing. Kudos go to cinematographer Pawel Edelman for his apocalyptic scenes of rubble strewn Warsaw.

  "The Pianist" is a little too long at 148 minutes. It could easily have been trimmed to two hours without losing any of its impact. However, I recommend this film mostly for the soulful performance of Adrien Brody, who plays Szpilman as if he were born for this role.
  
  

• Survival Story
  By A1GN8UJIZLCA59 on 2003-06-09
  Roman Polanski's The Pianist is the real life story of Wladyslaw Szpilman who was a Polish Jew who survived the Nazi occupation of Poland. Adrien Brody plays Szpilman and he gives a star-making performance. Szpilman is a concert pianist who plays on Polish radio and as the film begins he is playing on the radio when the area of Warsaw the station is in is bombed. The Szpilman family is defiant at first towards the news of the German occupation, but then like all Jewish families, they are forced to follow the strict rules the Nazis set forth regarding Jews. They are made to move from their spacious and homey apartment into a [cramped], run down space in the designated Jewish ghetto. The family struggles for money, but Wladyslaw is still able to play piano in a Jewish restaurant for meager earnings. Eventually the family is in line to be sent to a concentration camp, but through sheer fate, Wladyslaw is pulled from the line boarding the train and is spared certain death. He then spends time working a slave laborer building the wall separating the Jewish section of Warsaw from the rest of the city. Again, he escapes through the gracious help of others and through the underground resistance is kept hid in an apartment away from detection. Although free from the ghetto, he is a prisoner in the apartment and at the mercy of others. He is facing starvation when he is forced to flee the apartment when it is bombed. He hides out in a hospital for a while and eventually ends up in the bombed out ruins of Warsaw. It is while he is hiding in the ruins that he again faces almost certain death when he is discovered by a German officer, Captain Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann). Hosenfeld speaks with him and asks what Szpilman's profession was and Szpilman replies he is a pianist. There happens to be a piano in the house and Hosenfeld makes Szpilman play. Szpilman plays a gorgeous piece and Hosenfeld is moved to spare Szpilman's life. He brings him food and when the Germans are retreating from the Russians, Hosenfeld gives Szpilman his coat to keep warm. It is the exchange between Hosenfeld and Szpilman that is the heart of the film and shows that despite the horror of war and the atrocities of the Nazis, that the true spirit of humanity can still shine through. Ironically, Szpilman survived the war and went on to continue his career as a pianist and Hosenfeld ended up a prisoner in a Russian war camp where he died several years after the war ended. Mr. Brody is incredible in his part. His facial expressions convey the sense of fear and hopelessness that Szpilman must have felt through his tragic journey. Never once does go over the top, it a truly genuine performance. Mr. Polanski also does a brilliant job of directing. He details the senseless brutality and omnipresence of the German occupation of Poland, but never sinks into gratuitous violence. The film was nominated for seven academy awards including Best Picture. Both Mr. Brody and Mr. Polanski scored unexpected, but richly deserved Oscars for Best Actor and Best Director respectively and Ronald Harwood won the film's third Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
  
  
• Easily one of the best films of 2002
  By ASU3THM5ZUTUI on 2003-02-07
  "The Pianist" is the true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew and a brilliant pianist who lived in Warsaw during World War II. Beginning soon after the Blitzkrieg, the film follows Szpilman�s experience as he witnesses all the oppression from the Germans, from restricting Jewish access to executing Jews in rows. Before long, Szpilman�s family is brought together to be shipped off to Nazi labor camps, but he manages to elude deportation. From then on, Szpilman tries to survive among the devastated Warsaw ghetto.

  It is difficult to decide where to begin praising a film as good as this. Having also lived in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, director Roman Polanski has now created a marvelous film that unflinchingly shows the horrors of the Holocaust, yet has great moments of kindness and triumph as well. The film presents many disturbing images, and it is not for the faint of heart. However, Polanski always keeps Szpilman�s survival to be the main focus throughout the film, with the cruelty of the Nazis as a secondary theme. Thus, "The Pianist" never shoves brutality in your face just for shock value. Instead, it comes off as both a thrilling tale of survival and a genuinely moving tribute to the human spirit.

  The meticulous direction leaves even the shortest of individual scenes lingering in the viewer�s mind. For example, one scene shows a woman being shot in the back while running down the street, and Polanski had told the actress EXACTLY how to slump down and keel into a lifeless position; he said this was the way he had once seen a woman die while he was a child in Warsaw. Other equally memorable moments include images of Szpilman drinking whatever water he can find, and one of the most harrowing scenes involves a man in a wheelchair being thrown from his apartment into the street.

  The technical elements are superb as well; everything is done in such an incredibly realistic way that the audience virtually becomes a first-hand witness of everything Szpilman goes through. The cinematography, costume design, and sound effects editing make Warsaw come to life with all its sounds and sights. Particularly noteworthy: the desolate snow-covered buildings, the smoke rising into the clouds from burning corpses, and the momentary loss of sound as Szpilman is temporarily deafened by a tank blast.

  But the performance by lead actor Adrien Brody is what really makes the entire film so thoroughly memorable and engrossing. Brody is rarely seen off-camera, so a lot depends on him being able to tell much of the story himself. His actions and eyes speak so much without him having to say anything; I will never forget the look on his face after he accidentally broke a set of dishes. The other actors (such as Ed Stoppard, Thomas Kretschmann, and Emilia Fox) don�t get nearly as much screen time, but they too do well with what they�ve been given.

  Finally, the denouement is unforgettable. No one will be breathing during the last half-hour of this film. It starts off remarkably tense, but the last 15 minutes progress with increasing poignancy. When the film came to its finish and the credits began to appear, no one in my local movie theater dared to move a muscle; everyone sat through all the credits and watched the film to its very end.

  Recommendations don�t get much higher than that.

  Not easy to watch, but certainly rewarding, this independent film will leave its haunting spell in your mind for years to come. Truly amazing on all counts, "The Pianist" is one of the best films of 2002, and it will be a crying shame if it doesn't get at least a few Oscar nominations. See it now.
  
  

• NO WORDS.
  By A2I5406XT0H9VD on 2003-01-09
  There are bad movies, good movies, very good movies, the classic movies, and the memorable movies. "The Pianist" is one of them; one of the movies you applauded to after it finished. This is the one you do not leave the theater until it is over; the last frame and the last sound. What makes a movie memorable? A touching story compounded with and multiplied by an excellent acting and a good cinematography would do the job every time. But, really, how often does it happen? Should I name a few, which I remembered for hours, days and would remember for life? We all have a special place for movies like this. Now I have one more movie to store there.

  The story of this movie is well familiar to us. The war and the betrayal of the whole world let the Germans to occupy Poland. Well, it was not just an occupation it was rape of Poland on the scale not known in the history. Great Britain and France (the Polish partners in peace) were standing aside swallowing hard while the Russians were holding the victim, raped by the Germans, down. Poland was pillaged, raped and dismantled and who paid the price - as always the Jews. They were assembled, isolated and disposed of with the well-known German efficiency. Almost three million Polish Jews had perished with the smoke of hard working chimneys. The Jewish question was solved and everyone took a turn solving it.

  The hero of the story survived and he told the story. That helps us to separate the good from the bad. I read the book before I saw the movie and the book was just one of the books covering the subject I knew so much about. But the movie shocked me and turned me around. I attribute it to the genius of Roman Polanski. Roman Polanski well deserves to be among the best directors.
  
  

• Love- Life-Music-War... The Pianist Is A Masterpiece.
  By A1FYLVHQWSR8O5 on 2003-05-01
  I saw The Pianist on my birthday 3 months ago.
  I had heard some good reviews and was very interested to see what Polanski had been up to lately.
  I was astonished, moved, and speechless.
  The movie embodies everything that I love about film....a true story being told with love and great care for the past, and in a way that makes you feel the pain that the characters experience.

  Adrien Brody will now get the credit he deserves after his 10+ years in the industry. His performance was genuine and brilliant. He has been my favorite actor for a few years and out did all of his previous work with his role as Wladyslaw Szpilman. I cannot think of a more deserving performance of the Best Actor Oscar in recent years.

  The Pianist is an unforgettable film about a simple man who hangs on when all hope and life is lost from the world he knows.
  
  

• Where was God in the Warsaw ghetto?
  By A2HII4U9WQ0XUV on 2003-09-24
  Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" is a hard film for me to review, because it was a hard film to watch. I am an admirer of Polanski, and have watched everthing he's made---right down to "The Fearless Vampire Killers"---scores of times. I approached "The Pianist" with a combination of intrigue and ambivalence: on the one hand, doubtless I would get a hearty serving of Holocaust horror and grue, which I wasn't looking forward to. On the other hand, Polanski is a master filmmaker at the height of his craft, and if he had a story to tell about the Nazi occupation of Poland, I wanted to hear it.

  I wasn't expecting this.

  "The Pianist" is not a normal film; it is certainly not a normal "Holocaust film", if there is even such a thing. And contrary to the way the film was marketed, it is not a story of hope, of redemption amidst the ruins, of a ray of light in humanity's darkness. Not at all.

  This is a story of stupid, brute, hard-scrabble survival. The fact that it is set in 1939 Warsaw is almost incidental, in that the character of Wladyslaw Szpilman (played masterfully by Adrien Brody) could as easily have been stranded on a desert island, crashed in the snowy heights of the Andes, or buried in the bowels of some Stygian cave.

  So viewer beware: this is not a hopeful tale, this is a brutal, harrowing, horrifying first-person journey told entirely from the viewpoint of its eponymous protagonist. And from the moment we encounter the pianist playing Chopin for the Polish state radio, until the closing credits, the camera literally never leaves his side.

  With that in mind, "The Pianist" is the story of a young Jewish man's struggle to survive as the Nazi darkness falls across Poland. The story is set, and takes place entirely, in Warsaw, begins with the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 (with a shell literally crashing into the Pianist's formerly serene world), and culminates in the "liberation" of the city by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.

  The sequences are terse, starkly filmed, often brutal, and mercilessly chronological: Szpilman's family, along with the other Jewish citizens of Warsaw, is quickly humiliated and segregated. One by one come the cold Nazi dictums: no Jews in the parks, no Jews in cafes, no Jews sitting on public benches, all Jews must wear self-made Stars of David on the right arm of their clothing. Ultimately Szpilman's family is moved to the Warsaw ghetto, and things quickly go downhill from there.

  When the credits rolled, I was stunned, I was utterly in shock. I recall the initial line of "Moby Dick" from Melville: "And I alone escaped to tell thee." That, for me, is "The Pianist." Szpilman is nothing more than a brute survivor, his humanity is reduced by degrees, as before our horrified eyes he begins to die a death of a thousand cuts. And that, I think, explains why this movie was so maddening for me, and at times so repulsive.

  It's hard to identify with Szpilman, this man who trades everything for survival, for the ability to once again play Chopin on his beloved ivories (and boy does he get his chance!). Adrien Brody here is truly masterful: I completely forgot that I was watching an actor on a screen play a role, and became completely absorbed in the character. It is an amazing role, but also a creepily unattractive one: Szpilman is no hero. The heroes in this movie get shot, burned, executed with no quarter and no mourners. Indeed, I became increasingly frustrated with this strangest of protagonists, who is both massively lucky and massively foolish; those familiar with the sequences where Szpilman fumbles with dishware and ambles out to Russian rescuers will understand what I'm talking about here.

  Szpilman, meanwhile, survives---but there is a catch to his survival, and in it I think Polanski provides an antidote to an otherwise mesmerizing but nihilistic film that seems to whisper about the silence of God in a blindly uncaring, insane universe. And even more remarkably, despite my initial loathing for the character---my God, man, grab a rifle and get revenge!---I began to care very deeply for him.

  Polanski makes a bold decision in attaching the camera solely to Szpilman, and it is a gambit that pays off handsomely. Szpilman becomes our eyes on this brutal, searingly horrific world; his ears are our ears, and we flinch when he fumbles with a cabinet and brings a cupboard full of china crashing down on the floor of his hiding place. Polanski has worked seamlessly with Director of Photography Pawel Edelman to create a totally authentic nightmare world which becomes unbearably horrible---and then, without flinching, spirals down into even more unimaginable horror.

  The acting here is all first-rate. Particularly surprising is the excellent work by Thomas Kretschmann (an elegant German actor with fine poise who appeared, amazingly, as the Vampire overlord Damaskinos in Blade II), who portrays a German officer who---no, I'll let you see for yourself. In a sense, Kretschmann's character serves as the mirror image of the pianist, and puts a fine coda to the film. And while the film features the most haunting piano works of Beethoven and Chopin, composer Wojciech Kilar (who produced the astounding soundtrack to Polanski's "The Ninth Gate") returns with a haunting, moving score that serves the movie well.

  I am not finished with "The Pianist." It was not an easy film to watch; indeed, it was often repulsive and maddening, and yet I imagine I'll be watching it again. If you find yourself reacting in the same way to the film, if you're tempted to turn it off---resist!---stay with it: you'll be richly rewarded. It is a bold film, a masterful movie, and a film which I contend again is not strictly a Holocaust piece: it is about survival, and centers on the question of how much of himself a man is willing to surrender in order to survive---and after the surrender, what remains of the man? What makes him human?

  One question continues to trouble me, though: is Szpilman changed after his ordeal? Is he a different man---or is he the same? Did he change, after all?
  
  

• Sometimes survival comes down to just being very lucky...
  By A2NJO6YE954DBH on 2003-06-05
  I full appreciate and endorse the idea that there will be one film in your experience that brings home the horrors of the Holocaust for you, and after that point nothing else has quite the same effect. This is true for me and actually came when I was editing out commercials of the television mini-series "Holocaust," which had none of the graphic depictions found in theatrical films such as "Schnidler's List" and "The Pianist," or even later television efforts such as "War and Remembrance." But just because the full horror truly overwhelms you that first time and never with quite the same force again, does not mean other similar tales are not worth the telling. I know I will never see a film that conveys the horror of war more than the opening sequences of "Saving Private Ryan," but that does not stop me from seeing more movies about World War II.

  "The Pianist" is an atypical story of a European Jew during this period because the title character, Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody is his Oscar winning performance), survives the Holocaust. There is a memorable shot of Szpilman walking down the street of the Warsaw ghetto after the deportation of the Jews and the streets are littered with their possessions. Hundreds of characters in the film, thousands from the ghetto, millions throughout Europe were exterminated by the Nazis. Szpilman is the exception, not the rule.

  The horror of his survival is that is so random and very little of what Szpilman does contributes to his being alive at the end of the film. The explanation, such director Roman Polanski provides in this film, is that Szpilman has value as a classical pianist, a cultural icon of sorts to the people of Warsaw, whether they are Jewish or not. That is the key factor in the decisions, often impromptu ones, that save Szpilman's life. But there is also the factor of luck, whether it is both German and Russian soldiers being poor shots, or simply where you stand in line. You can see where the story would resonate with Polanski, who was pushed through the fence of the concentration camp by his father, who also survived.

  In many ways "The Pianist" is a fitting counterpart to "Schindler's List" as a different sort of survivor's tale. In Steven Spielberg's film the story is heroic because of the effort to fight the system and the odds (Oskar Schindler ended a lot high on the list of AFI's Heroes this week than Moses). But there is little of the hero in Szpilman. Instead he is a witness, who often has to do nothing more than look out the window to see both the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the turning tide of the war. He is a mute witness as well, as much by temperament as by his vocation, although there is only one piano piece in the entire film where we sense that he is articulating his feelings rather than playing what he has been told to play. But Brody plays many scenes without ever uttering a word and despite the title very few scenes have music if his character is not the one playing it.

  �The Pianist� falls between triumph and tragedy, which may well prove unsettling to many viewers who want the security of provided by such categorization. I have seen comparisons to the second half of this film with �Castaway,� and while I understand the comparison it falls through simply because Szpilman is a less than active agent in his own survival too many times. But that is just another small reminder that �The Pianist� is history and not fiction and that the greatest horror is not the we are the victims of a grand design but rather of the arbitrariness of the fickle finger of fate.
  
  

• For shame
  By on 2004-06-30
  Even though barely deserving a rebuttal, some of the reviews here are so beyond asinine that I cannot restrain myself, particularly with regard to those reviewers who had the gall to call Mr. Szpilman a coward. Mr. Szpilman risked immediate death every time he helped to smuggle a weapon or ammunition into the ghetto. The ghetto uprising itself was essentially a suicide mission, and everyone involved probably knew that. So Mr. Szpilman was a coward because he wanted to live, then? How dare you. While I don't believe that any work of art should be above criticism no matter what its subject matter, I have not read a single negative review here that has any remotely intelligent criticism of this film whatsoever. They pretty much describe it as "boring" or "another Holocaust movie." Schmucks. One reviewer couldn't even remember the protagonist's name, yet had no shortage of would-be scathing things to say about the movie. Almost as absurd are the unfavorable comparisons to "Schindler's List." Yes, Oskar Schindler was a great man, but the very straightforward good vs. evil nature of the subject matter must have appealed to Steven Spielberg's very American sensibilities. "The Pianist," on the other hand, boldly treads a ground that is decidedly messier, morally less clear-cut, and I think that only a man like Roman Polanski, who understands the particular time and place where these events transpired, could have made this film. And Adrien Brody fully deserved the Academy Award for this performance. And, yes, he does spend a good deal of time searching like a "rat" for food. What do these buffoons think it means to survive in such an environment? Idiots. Anyhow, this film is a masterpiece, an artistic triumph of the highest rank. The naysayers have not been able to level a single legitimate criticism against it.
  
  
• Tour-de-Force of Mans Brutality
  By A1F8JG3FFF7I10 on 2003-01-08
  When you watch a movie about a massive tragic event, it is hard not to become desensitized. Often, the images on the screen, no matter how horrible they are, lose some meaning after a constant stream of them. The hard part for the director of such movies is too keep the message fresh, to make the violence and death last inside a persons mind. The Holocaust is a prime example, as brutal cruelty was so common in the actual era. This barrage of violence anesthetizes the viewer to some extent. The Pianist manages to buck that trend, by providing a dramatic and breathtaking visual narrative of mankind's darkest era, through the eyes of a truly remarkable man.

  The Pianist begins on the first day of World War II, as the Germans invaded Poland. We are introduced to the main character, the young Jewish pianist from Warsaw, Wladyslaw Szpilman. He and his family, along with much of Warsaw, are heartened when they hear of Britain and France declaring war on Germany. They sense little danger. Unfortunately for them, the Germans quickly conquered Warsaw, and the 350,000 Jews of the city were at their mercy. The movie makes the important point that the deportation and liquidation of the Jews was a somewhat gradual process of confinement and starvation. This gave many Jews hope that they would be able to grit their teeth and bare the occupation, that any kind of resistance was foolish. How could anyone at the time, especially the Jews, imagine death on such a titanic scale? However, as the months passed and more and more were slaughtered, it became apparent that the outcome would be total destruction. Wladyslaw manages to survive the ghetto system by a combination of cleverness and shear luck. His closest associates are not so lucky. He works on a labor detail, until, using pre-war contacts, he manages to escape. Amazingly, it gets almost as bad on the outside. It's one man's tale, but that makes it even more intriguing.

  Following up on that prior point, the Pianist tells the story of the Holocaust through one mans eyes. This makes it fairly unique among Holocaust movies, but no less poignant. In fact, I felt the personal view was even more effective. It made the events almost personal, as you looked down and watched the world collapse around your narrator. Much of the movie is shot in this first person witness style, which is as unique as it is fascinating. The set is great, everything is effective down to the last detail. Some moments are amazingly tense, and the viewer is just spellbound. The acting, especially by Adrien Brody as Szpilman, is top notch. Brody really undergoes a striking transformation that drives the movies point home. His love for music and the piano is his one connection to the real world, as he is surrounded by such inhuman horror. This is one of Polanski's best films and should be considered as one of 2002's best pictures.

  Never forget.
  
  

• Very important story...
  By ABS6VJX1KCAW4 on 2003-08-27
  Very important story based on an autobiography book by Wladyslaw Szpilman, Polish Jewish great pianist who survived the Nazi rape of Poland in WW-II. Great and very talented director Roman Polanski who for the second time in his career went in the undermined world to make a point, to tell the real story which have been told before.
  Nazi march thru Poland, placed Jews in Ghettos and than shipped them to concentrating camps. To burn them, to gas them, to kill them. Wladyslaw Szpilman ( best role by Adrien Brody ) was lucky to get away and hide to survive. Five stars! A million Oscars! No! Why?
  After first 30 minutes of the film, I lost any interest in main character. Even Polanski admitted that this was not much to go with. This is not the story of someone who sacrificed something for better. It is a story of a chicken which never crossed the road. But I have to admit director's talent. The way how he showed his personal point of view on the main character: by making him watch in hiding the others, the ones who chose not to hide but to fight. The ones who didn't care about their little lives but cared about real freedom... the ones who won the war.
  At the end the story of the German officer got my attention but it died without deep look into it.
  I would of give this fine film A- grade, but I watched not well known "The Truce" few month before "The Pianist" came out. Compare to that film? Solid 4 stars, not an inch more.
  "Vlad"
  
  
• One of the most boring movies ever to hit the silver screen!
  By A2329GPAT2XIIZ on 2003-12-04
  I honestly couldn't be more bored or annoyed by this movie. It depicts the life and conditions of a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Poland during WWII, and probably does a very good job of showing what conditions were like, and the horror and suffering inflicted on the Jewish people, but it just isn't entertainment! There comes a point in the movie - about half way through - when you realise that nothing is actually going to happen. It almost seems as though only half a script was written and the rest of the movie needs to be filled in with a haggard looking pianist staring out of various windows. Yes, I know that the intention was to make the viewer feel the tedium and claustrophobic conditions that the pianist was enduring, but it just isn't interesting! I don't really think that the life story of...I can't actually remember his name so you see how much impact this movie had on me...was actually worth making a movie about in the first place! This was just an overindulgence of the part of some writer and director, and such a shallow movie with underdeveloped characters, not to mention the apathy! This film only really showed me three things about the nature of people. (1) Everyone in this movie cares for nothing other than himself - even the pianist who seems to care little for the fate of his family as long as he is OK. Everyone is on the take - even the "nice" guy who is supposed to be collecting for the pianist is creaming off the money and letting the pianist get sick - is there noone in this movie with any human decency? (2) The Jews simply allowed their fate to happen to them without so much as an attempt to fight back until it was all too late. Those thousands of Jews in Warsaw could have made a real problem for the Nazis if they had just had the backbone to do something about it! (Again, I'm not saying they don't - this is the message I am getting from this movie). There are so many hints that they are going to fight back, but the vast majority end in apathy! (3) All Germans are evil. By the time we have witnessed the many horrendous acts of cruelty we see so many of the Germans comitting, the one German who is supposed to redeem the others at the end of the film, just doesn't have any significance. Also, as ALL the Germans are portrayed as evil and brutal, the kindness of the German officer who brings the pianist food is now way out of character. I am aware of the brutality committed by the Nazis, but the overindulgence in brutality this film portrays can have but one goal - to pit people against the Germans! Do we really need to dredge up all that hatred again and again as the world is supposedly becoming a closer community? I think not! If you want to be bored, depressed and feel very negative about humankind, then this is the movie for you! If you want to be entertained, then go and watch the Star Wars collection!
  
  
• Reviewing the reviewing of "The Pianist"
  By A2329GPAT2XIIZ on 2003-12-09
  Have you noticed that with this movie, as well as probably all other entertainment products on Amazon, people do not vote on whether they thought a review was sueful or not, just on whether they agreed with it! If people thought "The Pianist" was great, then they will click on the "Yes" button for "Was this review useful to you?" and if they didn't agree with you, they will click on the "No". A great many people using Amazon are simply missing the point when it comes to reviews!
  
  
• The Watcher
  By A1TJPMB7N776WS on 2003-01-05
  Somber, serious, with only a hint of his trademark wit and sarcasm ("Why are you wearing that Nazi Coat?"..."I'm Cold," replies Szpilman (Adrien Brody) Roman Polanski presents a film of the Holocaust from the point of view of those in Poland; specifically The Warsaw Ghetto.
  "The Pianist" is a true story based on the experiences of the pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman but unlike say Otto Schindler, Szpilman is a watcher rather than a participant in the action of his own story. He's an Artist not a Fighter, you might say. Actually he's a very lucky person in many ways, for because of his celebrity as a radio pianist he has many friends who help him escape the concentration camps and thereby survive the war.
  There is an over-riding sense of truth to the way Polanski handles this material as there are very few big dramatic, handkerchief at the ready scenes and more business-as-usual scenes of the atrocities of the Nazi's. Polanski is smart enough to realize that we've seen it all before and seeing it through the eyes of Szpilman: the public executions, the beatings, the starvation, the vermin, the degradations become so commonplace that it takes us a second to realize how very horrible it all is: he's saying there was so much of it that we all got used to it...it became commonplace, a natural occurrence and consequently more horrendous in the viewing and in the contemplation afterwards.
  Adrien Brody plays Szpilman very quietly; very passively...he is more acted upon that acting. As the movie unfolds he loses more and more weight, grows a beard and his eyes get bigger and bigger and more vacant: since he spends most of the film alone in hiding much of his role is really silent film acting; done with the eyes and body language: truly a masterful performance.
  Polanski's "The Pianist" is Polanski at the top of his form very much unlike "Chinatown" for example but just as resonant with feeling, superior move-making and respect for his audience's intelligence.
  
  
• "The Pianist" - Polanski's Magnificent Epic of Redemption
  By A2FQYTHR1K0ISY on 2003-01-16
  Only twice in my forty years on this earth has a movie of such power and grace literally pinned me to the back of my chair with rapt appreciation and respect. "The Pianist" was one of those films. Roman Polanski rightly won the coveted "Palme D'Or" at last May's Cannes Film Festival for his evocative and respectful treatment of the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a talented pianist who barely escaped the Nazi terror in 1940s Poland. Polanski's subtle mastery of the art of filmmaking draws us in to the story of a young man whose entire family was exterminated by Nazi bestiality, yet who managed - again and again - to escape the nagging jaws of death and evil. Drawing upon his musical skills and his own strength of will, Szpilman was able to not only survive but to prosper in post-war Poland, his musical gifts intact. "The Pianist" is a staggeringly brilliant film that conveys the strength and beauty of the human spirit in the wake of overweening barbarity - and the power and dignity of music in the midst of roiling terror and uncertainty. Not insignificantly, it is the 69-year-old Polanski's triumph as well. Forty years after leaving his homeland, the director has made his finest film. Sixty years after barely escaping the Nazi occupation of Poland, Polanski has once again gifted us with his singular talents and meticulous attention to detail. "The Pianist" is indelibly stamped with the director's genius for subtlety (he powerfully draws us into the story without gratuitously presenting the myriad horrors of the Holocaust), and it makes for an unforgettable experience. It's the kind of movie this reviewer walked several miles in her own (well-worn) shoes to see. It's the kind of film I gladly risked hypothermia to enjoy - and I am a better person for it.
  
  
• The Best Movie of 2002.
  By A38U2M9OAEJAXJ on 2003-03-08
  It's hardly surprising that Roman Polanski would film "The Pianist" and even less surprising that it's the best and most skillfully crafted movie of 2002. Polanski himself is a Holocaust survivor and suffered the loss of his mother who died in the gas chambers. This firsthand experience, along with his talent as a superb filmmaker, enables Polanski to direct this film so brilliantly while snubbing Hollywood conventions. This is easily his third masterpiece, following "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) and "Chinatown" (1974). 29-year-old Adrien Brody is near-miraculous as Wladyslaw Szpilman, the pianist who, through luck and God-given perseverance, survives the Holocaust in the Warsaw ghetto. This isn't a showoffy performance that begs for an Oscar (though it deserves one); like the movie itself, it's quietly elegant and beautifully understated. And while we never actually see the concentration camps, Polanski paints an all-too-vivid picture of one of the most shameful atrocities in history. We witness starvation, senseless killings, and other forms of unfiltered brutality that aren't for the squeamish. But "The Pianist" isn't really about Holocaust but rather about the will and tenacity of the human spirit against frightening odds. Sure, it's a topic that's been covered before, but never in a movie as unforgettable as this. Some films do little more than occupy 2 hours of your time, while others leave an imprint on your soul and may even change the way you view life. At this point, I don't need to tell you which of these two categories "The Pianist" falls into.
  
  
• The Pianist
  By on 2003-03-09
  This is, by far, the worst movie I have seen in ages. I hate passive protagonists and, frankly, since Schindler's List, no one has shown me anything new about the Holocaust.
  What we have here is a case of the Emperor having no clothes. Everyone is doing backflips because it's Polanski. No. It is heavy-handed, tedious, unrelenting and boring.
  When a protagonist is passive it is not possible to connect with him on an emotional level.
  By the end, frankly, my dear, I didn't give a damn what happened to him.
  
  
• Same old, same old.
  By on 2003-11-06
  I know I am on dangerous grounds here. With the near certainty of being labeled anti-Semite, I have to say that, of the array of Holocaust movies which have come out over the years, if you've seen one of them, you seen them all, almost. Dignified human drama depicting the human spirit triumphing over hardships. You have already seen a dozen of these.
  
  
• This is a keeper. Required viewing!
  By A1L8HRCM60W0W7 on 2003-03-24
  I thought, another stereotypical albeit well-baked movie about a minority group (Jewish) in the throes of the holocaust. How big a deal could that be?

  Boy, did I underestimate Polanski's (China Town, Ninth Gate) mettle as a story teller! Half-way through the movie, you'll be far too immersed in the vein of the story to worry about your preconceived notions about an archetypic war movie.

  Theme-wise, this is a story of Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Jewish pianist who is ghettoised when the Nazis invade Poland. A frail and delicate man, he is ill-equipped to cope with the rigours imposed, or the political shenanigans his colleagues employ to try and gain favour. His music is his continual companion and his sole retreat from the misery. All the elements of a WWII movie are smooshed in -- the litany of Nazi cruelty, the change in the Jews from helpless victims to freedom fighters, the triumph of the human spirit etc etc. So those of you anticipating some sort of action and suspense won't be disappointed. But where the movie transcends expectations is its superlative control of the characters -- Germans or Jews -- as flesh-and-blood human beings, highlighting their fears and the motivations behind why they did what they did.

  The Pianist potrays a vivid barbaric spectre of WW II as poignant as La Vita è bella or Sophie's Choice, as visually stunning as Saving Private Ryan or Platoon, and as emotionally epic as Full Metal Jacket or Schindler's List. IN fact, more like La Vita è bella or Sophie's Choice perhaps, this is a deeply personal narrative that real and genuine people can relate to and will treasure for the lessons that may be draw from it.

  I appreciated its honesty -- Polanski refuses to trade on sentimentality to achieve its power. Szpilman's reluctance to let us in on his thoughts about his family, friends, and the people who helped keep him alive make him appear aloof, but the reality is so far beyond normal comprehension that emotional numbness may be the only appropriate response. When Brody finds a kindred soul in the German Captain Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann) who discovers his hiding place, however, we are finally drawn into the humanity of his character. It is here that the soulful music of Chopin's Nocturne in C played by Szpilman in a hollowed-out apartment in the midst of desolation lends a bizarre beauty to the unfathomable night. An important message, this -- not all the Germans were evil.

  While you may occasionally feel that Polanski was a bit too obvious with the good/bad personifications (e.g., the evil Germans were all rugged & scowling whereas the protagonists heroic underground rebel Jews were all fairly handsome and jovial), you'll nevertheless finish the movie with some very beautiful imagery that'll linger in your mind for a while, in fact if my weak-kneed experience is any indication, perhaps in your eyes too. And what an incredibly ironic timing it will be given the supposed "shock and awe" we are being served in Iraq as I write.
  
  

• If I could give it zero stars I would
  By on 2003-04-28
  Simply bad. I like intelligent films and this film is not one of them. It's long, tediously boring and by the end I was not rooting for the survival of the main character. Everyone in the theatre was asleep by the time this film was over.
  Stay way, stay far away.
  My review may be unpopular but at least it's honest and not driven by Oscar hype.
  
  
• Heart-felt and powerful
  By A29IYGR7SNPRIV on 2003-01-28
  Far too many films use war(s) to make their points. For Speilberg, it's a venue for manipulation (Schindler's List being a prime example of bending
  history to accommodate the director's message); for Stanley Kubrick (Full Metal Jacket) it was an opportunity to illustrate the eternal madness of
  sending children to war (Viet Nam) and the irreparable damage caused by the experience. For Polanski, it is a solemn ode to the whims of fate and the
  power of one man's life force.

  The Pianist is, in all ways, an understated film. Polanski makes the sensational matter-of-fact. The bodies of dead Jews in the streets is so horrific to the
  occupants of the infamous Warsaw Ghetto that they simply cease seeing them. We the audience see them and are lifted into the mindset of the nearly
  half-million people who were bricked into that small area where constant acts of casual madness (people selected at random to take one step forward
  and then get shot down, while those not chosen contain their reactions and look away) are routine. Polanski's view is unsentimental, clear-eyed and
  imbued with the knowledge of someone who survived the horrors and lived to tell about it.

  Brody as pianist Szpilman gives a wonderfully understated performance, his dark soulful eyes haunted; his body is curved inward from perpetual fear
  and hunger. And yet, in what has to be one of the most powerful scenes in the film, when a young German officer encounters Brody/Szpilman in an
  empty house and asks who he is, what he does, why he's hiding, and Szpilman admits, "I used to be a pianist," and then, at the officer's invitation, sits
  down to play--what the music achieves is everything the film needs to say. It's one of the most wrenching scenes ever filmed, profoundly moving and
  evocative of both the interior life of the artist, the timelessness of music and, finally, the truth that music is, indeed, the universal language.

  The only jarring moment (my daughter and I had a dispute over this scene) was Brody's emerging from hiding in the German officer's greatcoat and
  being shocked and surprised at being denounced as a German. My daughter thought it didn't ring true, that someone who'd so scrupulously kept
  himself safe and hidden would do something so stupid. My take was that in his leap of joy at realizing freedom was before him, Szpilman simply
  forgot about the coat. I'll have to read the book to find out if this is described in more detail.

  This is not your feel-good, Hollywood war movie but something rooted firmly in historical reality. But it is important viewing.
  My highest recommendation.
  
  

• WAYYY Overrated
  By on 2004-01-04
  I normally would give this movie 2 or 3 stars, but I had to counter all the ridiculous 5 star hyperbole of too many of these reviews.
  This movie is terribly gorgeous...and that is all.
  The characters are not fleshed out.
  The dialogue explains nothing and is virtually non-existent.
  It is also very, very, very SLOOOOWWWWW.
  All is sacrificed for the sake of beautiful cinematics.
  Well, gee, I could've gotten that by watching a documentary on the History Channel or Discovery, you know?
  
  
• The Undeniable Choice for Best Picture
  By AI37YX1U4KB1L on 2003-02-17
  It would be an unspeakable tragedy in the event that The Pianist fais to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Furthermore, Adrian Brody should, despite stellar competition, be given serious consideration for Best Actor as well. Roman Polanski, the controversial, yet immensely gifted in his craft, directs this infinitely provocative masterpiece of a film. Having heroically survived The Holocaust, Polanski proves to be the most preeminently qualified individual in the world to direct this tour de force.

  ... We all gleefully stayed to witness the extraordinary piano exhibition during the credits. It was a true testament to the sheer power of The Pianist. It was as if we were all entranced by the amazing perseverence, and not to mention the unwavering will of survival, of the highly endearing protagonist, Szpilman. And to think that the heinous and unspeakable attrocities so expertly chronicled in the movie actually transpired. ....

  Go see this movie today! It is THE best picture of the year - without any inkling of a doubt whatsoever. Pure genius on the big screen. The Pianist is the most moving and poignantly provocative picture I have had the pleasure of witnessing - in quite some time.
  
  

• a personal story of Holocaust
  By A3QFAQ7TQQGARF on 2003-04-09
  I am very proud reviewing this movie by the fellow Pole Roman Polanski. Not because he's a Pole - I always thought he's an OK. director, but for me never outstanding. I liked his early movies the most: fresh and thrilling "Knife In Water" made in Poland in early sixties, sinister and fascinating "Rosemary's Baby" with beautiful score by Komeda. What he did later I considered, more or less, a relative letdown. Even acclaimed "Chinatown" was Ok., but still a 4-star movie for me. So I did not expect anything brilliant from "The Pianist", especially that, for some reason, first reviews in Poland were lukewarm. The movie was said to be too straightforward, too conservative for this contemporary director, too sentimental etc.
  So I went to the theater with some anxiety; happily from the very beginning all fears were gone. All critical objections turned out to be ridiculous; all listed weaknesses turned out to be strengths.
  Starightforward? Yes. But man, it is the true and simple story of survival. The movie is quite exactly based on memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman, famous Polish pianist of Jewish origin, not only great interpreter of Chopin, but also great personality, full of humour, intelligence and warm hearted. This is a very personal story from the beginning to the very end. Moving and epic pictures of war and holocaust were somehow in the background, seen from Szpilman's window when he was moved from one hidden flat to another. And it's the main advantage here - a perfect balance between personal and general. That makes "The Pianist" even more moving than "Schindler's List" (also superb film), which concentrated more on paradocumentary, epic details. War, from a personal point of view is a tragedy, for the history it is only statistics. The story here was so personal and simple that I was moved to tears in some moments, the scene near the end when a German officer found Szpilman in a deserted, burned house (there were only ruins all around) and asked him to play piano... When the beautiful melody started I could not stop tears... Funny, isn't it?
  For the same reasons I find accusations that "The Pianist:" is too conservative or sentimental even more ridiculous. Polanski was certainly a great innovator. Most of his films are based on weird, somehow artificial plots delivered in a weird way. Modernistic filmmaking fit these plots very well. But here, I feel it was the true story of another man, fellow Jew and fellow Pole; the story deeply hidden in Polanski's mind and heart. It's like we say "I love you" - we use the simplest language known since the beginning of humanity...
  Nobody moved in the theater till last writings appeared on the screen, nobody talked, people went out silent. We could taste the real great art. I am very happy the Academy gave the makers their due, I only can't understand why the jury preferred the lightweight and forgettable "Chicago" over this. Maybe (my guess) only to satisfy Hollywood which produced no real gem this year ;-)

  Igor Kurowski
  
  

• An extrmely sad, yet AMAZING film
  By A1X5JD2GR49RX4 on 2003-05-16
  I just saw the pianist a couple of weeks ago. I saw it because i was really interested in knowing how Adrien Brody's performance could have been any better than Daniel Day-Lewis's perfomance in Gangs of New York. WHen i saw this film, i was shocked at the beginning. No film i had ever seen about the holocaust had touched me so much, and make me realize the atrocious things the jews passed through. Adrien Brody's perfomance was spectacular!! He deserved 110% the oscar he won. The directing oscar was very well deserved too. This film shows how extreme and devastating the holoucast was. I've always cosidered the holoucast the most horrible and unhuman things in history... and this film made me realiza that i was right. Few films have touched me in such a deep way, so i hope you all see it. Even though is a really tough film to see, i recomend it to everyone. I can't way until it comes out!! It is one of the best movies ever made!!
  
  
• Words Cannot Describe...
  By A2ASGWQKBC06TW on 2003-05-22
  The saying goes that "A picture is worth a thousand words"...if that is the case, than this film is worth millions of them.

  Very few films have the ability to make the viewer cry, feel pain, or joy. This one will take you through them all. At the close of this film you will feel as though you have lived through everything that Szpilman lived through, as well as those who were not so fortunate. You will feel weary at the end...you will feel like you have triumphed over something. You will feel a duty to live your life to the fullest and to allow others to live their lives as well. You will learn a lesson that we all should learn. The human spirit cannot be broken so long as there is something it can hope for.

  Brody is exquisite as Szpilman, taking on the burden forced on the musician by the oppressing Nazi invaders. You can look in his eyes and see the pain that Szpilman must have felt. You can also see his strength.

  You will not regret seeing this film.

  It's simply not possible.
  
  

• Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition)
• I Am Legend (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition with Digital Copy)
• Life Is Beautiful
• American Gangster (2-Disc Unrated Extended Edition)
• Lucky Number Slevin (Widescreen Edition)