Harsh Elegance

Rating: 10/10 (13 February 2003)

The only big dramatic moment comes when Brody plays the piano at someone's request, but there is no auditorium that gives him a standing ovation, there is no applause. There is an audience of one and when Brody finishes the dazzling piece (considering his state, to be sure) he's done. As a matter of fact, the care in which this scene is orchestrated is meticulous (is he just pausing...or can he remember it at all?).
The barking gunfire is jolting and crackling bombs send dust and debris flowing through the air. There are no big death scenes; when someone is killed (many of them are already face-down or on the ground), they slump over, the life in their body disappears and they go limp. There is one extraordinary death scene and what occurred to me was the way the camera follows it half-way. It's tense -- we don't want to see, and we never do -- but rather than satisfy us, we can only hear what happens, and it's much more affecting because of it. The film is violent but it isn't gory; it's emotionally powerful but not sentimental; it's elegant and tasteful but not without an edge -- the blackest of black humor that runs throughout the film is subtle and obvious and it's sure not comic relief (and it's not a cackling humor laughing at the hopelessness of a situation like in some of Polanski's other films, either).
Rather than add sentimentality and make us feel good about feeling bad, the film fills us up to the brink with the pianist's observations. The criticism this film has unfairly received from a few people that it's "detached" is bogus. We are observing the observer (and he's not one of those observers who talks to himself or thinks aloud so as to not leave us in doubt as to what's going on in his head). There is also no overview; we are aware of only what Brody is aware of. We aren't treated to a "this is how it happened" approach, either, rather we are shown specific incidents that amount to a whole (a man told to walk in the gutter, for instance). The film has been criticized by some for its portrayal of German soldiers as killing machines without depth. Of course there's the most important scene in the film which proves this completely false, so there's no point in even bothering to argue it.
Brody doesn't continue surviving by his wits alone -- which isn't to say he doesn't try his damndest -- he's helped by many others and what Polanski realizes (after his own experiences, how could he not?) is that this man need not live, but he does against the odds, drifting -- painfully -- into survival. His story isn't a "triumph of the human spirit," it's an uncharacteristic end that few met and it isn't treated as a victory so much as a final reprieve.
The scene in which Brody realizes the horror he's engulfed in, for me, was when he tries to help a young boy struggling to climb out from beneath the wall separating the Polish Jews' designated area. The look on his face afterwards will stay with me, I'm sure, for a good long while.
This film's stature rests as art defending -- and demanding -- art. It's a complete film that could work as a textbook for lifeless hell. Polanski isn't just acting as a mere craftsman, he's using his craft to settle something within himself, all the while never venturing into overtly personal territory.
On my way home from the film I was thinking about which was my favorite of the year, which one was the best. I thought of more flashy movies with a style that overwhelms you, risky movies not afraid to go all-out, but then I realized what makes this film so astonishing isn't what it shows you or what it doesn't show you, but the way in which we are shown. Everything is so much more powerful because the awful truths of Nazi horror are shown opposite the stillness of inner turmoil. Then I asked myself which movie had a the deepest effect on me. Not in terms of a gut reaction or an immediate feeling, but which one is the most likely to leave an impression on my soul. It was this one.
****