It's 1939, when promising young composer Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is about to become famous in Poland. But when Hitler stages his invasion, starting World War II, Szpilman is separated from his Jewish family, some of whom are murdered, and thrust into the hell of the Warsaw Ghetto. So begins his six-year struggle for escape and survival from the Nazi regime, eventually with the help of an unexpectedly sympathetic German officer, Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann).
Roman Polanski lived himself as a child in the Krakow Ghetto and lost his mother in Auschwitz. Decades later after becoming an established filmmaker, for this reason he declined Steven Spielberg's offer to direct Schindler's List. But in 2002 he finally chose to face his past, somewhat, with this masterful Holocaust epic of his own, for which (with or without his 1977 sexual assault of a minor) he won a richly deserved Best Director Oscar. On Schindler's List he stated "I could never have done as good a job as Spielberg because I couldn't have been as objective as he was," and yet his approach here, perhaps because it's somebody else's Holocaust experience, indeed shows unwavering objectivity. Unlike the mostly black-and-white Schindler's List, The Pianist is in colour except for the sepia opening credits, because of course that's how both Polanski and Szpilman saw it, and as well as confronting us with as much violence as necessary (and it's easily one of the most violent and disturbing movies I've ever seen), Polanski conveys the poverty, squalor and claustrophobia that also permeated the Ghetto more accurately than maybe any other director could.
Roman Polanski lived himself as a child in the Krakow Ghetto and lost his mother in Auschwitz. Decades later after becoming an established filmmaker, for this reason he declined Steven Spielberg's offer to direct Schindler's List. But in 2002 he finally chose to face his past, somewhat, with this masterful Holocaust epic of his own, for which (with or without his 1977 sexual assault of a minor) he won a richly deserved Best Director Oscar. On Schindler's List he stated "I could never have done as good a job as Spielberg because I couldn't have been as objective as he was," and yet his approach here, perhaps because it's somebody else's Holocaust experience, indeed shows unwavering objectivity. Unlike the mostly black-and-white Schindler's List, The Pianist is in colour except for the sepia opening credits, because of course that's how both Polanski and Szpilman saw it, and as well as confronting us with as much violence as necessary (and it's easily one of the most violent and disturbing movies I've ever seen), Polanski conveys the poverty, squalor and claustrophobia that also permeated the Ghetto more accurately than maybe any other director could.
Adrien Brody, whose surprise Best Actor Oscar win here famously had him passionately kissing Halle Berry as he accepted it, makes a perfectly soulful and dignified hero even as he endures terror and near-fatal starvation (to prepare for the part he ate a very restricted diet and learned Polish and German) before his rescue at the end, and strong support comes from Kretschmann and Maureen Lipman as Wladyslaw Szpilman's mother Edwarda. It's also very emotively filmed and lucidly edited, but ultimately Roman Polanski is the key reason The Pianist is so good. Even over Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby, I think it's the film he was born to make.
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