Tour de Force

Rating: 10/10 (10 September 2009)

There have been so many fine films that deal with the Holocaust. Each shows the atrocities of the Germans, their random cruelty, their ruthlessness. This film has all that, but it also has Adrien Brody. This is a film that gets us inside the human being, the person who must run, whose iron will propels him forward. The thing is, though, he is not necessarily a hero in the traditional sense. We sense the fatigue of his character as he runs from situation to situation, just trying to stay alive. There are good people around him, many are good Germans. While we watch people shot in the head, beaten to the ground, mutilated, we see him moving aimlessly toward something (the thing is we don't know what that something is). He hears rumors about the Russians liberating Poland but he can't let up for a second. He watches as the underground makes sacrifice after sacrifice, their building burned, their people sent up in flames. He sees himself as a coward. He thinks about being dead, but his will to live drives him on. The title, of course, is him--the pianist--a nationally known classical pianist, suddenly dehumanized. We see his weaknesses and his strengths. We also get a more balanced though terrifying view of the situation in the Polish ghetto. This is a film we should all see.