Strong survival story, without black-and-white approaches

Rating: 8/10 (5 February 2014)

As stories about vast sufferings such as genocide, holocaust, ethnic cleansing etc. are mostly revealed by sufferers-survivors, then they tend to be subjective and individualistic, full of hatred and grief, without so-called big picture, "we" are always good/right and "they" are always bad/wrong. Both the author of the autobiographical book (Władysław Szpilman) and its screenwriter (Ronald Harwood) have avoided the above and created a warmhearted, yet realistic and reasoned story about a Jewish family's fate around the events related to Warsaw Ghetto. The narration runs smoothly, we see people with different attitudes and characters among the Jews also, and not all Nazis were humiliators or ruthless killers... True, intellectuals such as musicians perceive the world in a different manner, they have more compassion and eagerness to understand rather than condemn, but still... The atmosphere is realistic, provides additional historical knowledge, and great choice of music plus talented aggregate direction makes The Pianist enjoyable to watch even if you the Szpilman's story (as I did not, the twists were additional value to me).
The cast consists mostly of European actors (apart from Adrien Brody, but his father is of Polish Jewish descent), and Nazis were played by Germans. Of course, Brody is the greatest of them, besides, he spends most time on screen. I think he fully deserved his multiple awards, including Academy Award for Best Actor. But also the rest of the cast fitted into the atmosphere well - both by looks-wise and performance-wise.
Altogether, The Pianist is a masterful panoramic narration and I liked it even more than Schindler's List.