Brody delivers a haunting, relentless performance, in this harrowing, gut-wrenching masterpiece.

Rating: 9/10 (14 February 2006)

THE PIANIST (2002) Number 1 - 2002 Top 100 - All Time MUSIC WAS HIS PASSION. SURVIVAL WAS HIS MASTERPIECE.
Roman Polanski, a great director (Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby) whose parents survived the Polish ghetto, gathers the emotional strength to tell us a tale about the horrific, brutal persecution of Jews during the second war. This is no small achievement. What we see on the screen is not pleasant and Polanski delivers it with ruthless efficiency, holding back on any sentimental tools that Hollywood so often uses. This is a powerful masterpiece.
This is the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew, a gifted pianist, whose family is taken to a concentration camp and he is left to scatter along the empty, lifeless streets of a destroyed Warsaw. Szpilman is played by Adrien Brody, a relatively unknown actor at the time, who consumes the role and delivers an extremely powerful, haunting performance throughout the whole film.
Polanski's direction also deserves praise. Technically superior, Polanski's camera-work is strategic in the way it translates imagery on the screen. His Oscar was very well deserved.
While 'Schindler's List' is comfortably superior, 'The Pianist' must be recognised as a brilliant film and a magnificent achievement, and in my opinion the very best film of 2002.
9/10