Touching and striking

Rating: 8/10 (20 January 2004)

Polanski is back, it seems, and manages to make a holocaust movie without being connected to "Schindler's List" and grabbing at the same time an Oscar for Best Director of the year. And it is indeed a return to form: Polanski recollects a true story, and depicts the horrors and the human paradox present in the darkest time for humanity. Adrien Brody looks like he was born for the role - his face alone provides everything we need to understand what he feels. The result is altogether touching and striking, even if the story doesn't benefit from some real life facts: if you think about it, the hero is never responsible for his own survival, always helped by friends. But even if this will make the experience a little more bitter for screenwriters and story-obsessed people, the movie is still chilling, and every time you see it and remember that it all happened once, you'll be hair-raised.