Survival may simply depend on little effort and the deeds of others.

Rating: Null/10 (1 December 2004)

Surviving death when it seems inevitable is a great feat, especially when your survival depends largely on the kindness and deeds of others. No one could provide a greater testimony to this than Wladyslaw Szpilman, acclaimed pianist and Holocaust survivor. Wladyslaw and the members of his immediate family would find out first hand how racism and prejudice could destroy a seemingly simple existence. The Pianist is a film about a Holocaust survivor and all the good fortunes that took place in order for him to avoid the same fate as the members of his family - death. Roman Polanski, director of The Pianist, does an excellent job of providing his audience with a sense of being through his use of music and color in a number of scenes throughout this movie.
For Wladyslaw music was the means by which he would drift from the reality of his situation and return to some place of peace. When Wladyslaw serenades a German Officer, Wilm Hosenfeld, the emotion and the passion by which he plays implies that he believes this is his last performance. It may be argued that Polanski employs the audience to grasp the true gravity of the Holocaust and all that Szpilman survived when he uses deep focus technique to show the disaster in the foreground and in the distance (miles of death and destruction). I believe that Steven Spielberg uses some of the same filming techniques in his depiction of the Holocaust with his film Schindler's List.
As if to keep the audience at a comfortable distance from the characters and the tragedy, Polanski does very few extreme close shots. He tries to keep his audience and his characters at a comfortable distance once the attack on the Jews begins. The lighting is primarily low key to imply a grim existence and not until the end does Wladyslaw color become more vibrant and the lighting around him shift to high key (final scene).
The uncertainty, the humiliation, the hurt from losing family members, the resolve of being a survivor and finally the settling in to a new existence are all brought to the surface with Wladyslaw's musical piece at his safe haven for the German Officer, Hosenfeld.