one of the greats

Rating: 10/10 (5 March 2003)

Over this past weekend two emotionally moving events happened. First, I saw "the pianist": Second, I went on a church retreat. Now I have been going to my church retreats for a number of years and they are almost always the highlight of the month, let alone the weekend. But I would have to say that the pianist moved me more then the retreat. I know this is pretentious but I just wanted to say it to emphasize the greatness of this film.

In my mind, if Shindler's List was ranked #7 on AFI "100 years, 100 movies", then this movie would have to be ranked somewhere between #1-6. Of course I don't think Shindler's List is the #7 movie of all time and I doubt "The Pianist" is in the top ten, either (though maybe the top 20), but that is beside the point.
This movie highlights what very few movies dare to say. This is that it is not enough mearly to survive, but to survive as a human being. This point is stated multiple times throughut the film (i.e. "I'm cold"; when Szpilman expresses his emotions through a moving score with the German; how Szpilman eats the Jam plain without the bread like a small child; etc., etc.), and is really what makes the film great. Brody really expresses how close to an emotional zombie Szpilman comes, without (in the end) eventually becoming one. I think the reason that the film came across so powerfully, without being sentamental, was that Polanski was there. I know this has been said before and will be said again, but I don't think it can be under-emphized. P.T. Anderson makes great films about "the valley" because he lived there, Spielberg makes great films about family relations because he was very hurt when his partent divorced, Quintin Tarintino makes great films about low-lifes partially because for many years he lived and interacted with lowlifes as a video clerk in L.A. Polanski was able to make a great film about the holocost becuase he was there.
And to all of you who have previously said that Brody flatlines on his acting I feel you have unfortunelty mistaken bad acting with suttle acting.

Overall this is maybe one of the greatest films of all time
10/10