A Harrowing Journey

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2010)

Roman Polanski's The Pianist demonstrates that there are many ways to film a Holocaust movie as the victims had so many different experiences. Wladyslaw Szpilman is a famous Jewish pianist in Warsaw, Poland, whose performances are frequently broadcast on the radio, but when the Nazis invade, he is reduced to playing in a restaurant. When his family is forced onto a train headed for a concentration camp, someone pulls Szpilman away from the line, and although he attempts to rejoin his family, the same man pulls him away again and says something to the effect: "I just saved your life, now go." These words convince Szpilman to save his own skin and he hides in the Warsaw Ghetto for the rest of the war. We never see Szpilman's family again.
I appreciated this film for depicting the various reactions to the Holocaust. Jews were not just helpless puppies who waited to be killed, they actively found ways to survive. There are the fighters who rise against the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto, an aspect of the Holocaust that is not portrayed in movies very often. They thought it was better to be killed while fighting rather than be shot randomly in the street.
Szpilman represents the survivor. He is not a great action hero, nor does he make any grand attempt to rescue his family or friends. Through his connections, he is able to find shelter, and he relies on the charity of others. His experience is truly harrowing. He faces starvation, illness, and some minor injuries. If he can't find food he steals it. A friend of mine told me he hated this film because he thought Szpilman was selfish for only helping himself, but I don't know what is selfish about saving one's life. Is this not what his family would have wanted for him? Can any of us say we would not have done the same thing in his situation? I don't think any of us are in the place to judge him.
The Pianist also depicts the non Jew's reaction to the Holocaust. There are the typical brutal Nazis who shoot Jews in the street, this is nothing new. But there is an active underground movement willing to help Szpilman, and in the end, a sympathetic German soldier gives him food. I liked this part of the film because Nazis are often depicted as one dimensional psychopaths, and at least this film made them a little more human.
Polanski was the right man to make this film as he had so much in common with Szpilman. Polanski escaped the Krakow ghetto after his mother was murdered. His own experience tells us something about why this story, based on Wladyslaw Szpilman's autobiography, appeals to him so much. As other critics have noted, I am sure Polanski and Szpilman asked themselves the same question every day: why me? The Pianist is about the various experiences of the Holocaust, and it reminds us that only a few were lucky. Rating: 4/5.