But why is he a pianist?

Rating: 8/10 (3 October 2005)

First, I have to give a disclaimer. I am not able to give full justice to this movie. It depicts events that exceed the horizon of my understandings. I've seen the Warshaw ghetto, and the concentration camps that are mentioned, and I can only say that I am not capable of understanding whether the cruelty shown does compare with the historical events. It is the discussion heard in the context of "Schindler's list", when Jewish critics said that the holocaust cannot be shown in adequate picture. I cannot comment this; but it should be mentioned.
The movie did lack, and I am still trying to understand if it lacks it deliberately, one thing that I can comment about: The joy of music. I spend considerable time listening to classical music, mostly piano concertos, and I find it pretty hard to believe that Brodys character is supposed to be a pianist - apart from his slim fingers. He is a pianist like some other man is a bank clerk, it is his job; but he neither seems to miss it, nor does it seem to influence his thinking or feeling. Maybe it is too romantic to believe that the joy of music would survive under the circumstances he experiences, but the topic is dropped without much ado. When he picks up playing piano again, he just plays like he has never missed it or never seen anything that might influence his way of playing.
Now, I was watching all that movie mostly to see his reunition with music, and I was surprised how little the scene did tell me. Why does he never play wrong notes? Why is there no different emotion mixed in the music, which is, after all, one of the most emotional piano music ever written? There are young polish pianists like Anderszewsky that could have provided such emotions, maybe only subtle; but I firmly believe it could have been done. For reference, see how Helene Grimaud played the Beethoven concerto on the eve of 9/11/2001. For me, Brody was playing a heartless man. Maybe this is how Polanski intended it to be.
For the remaining aspects of the film many good things have been said. It is, after all, only rarely depicted how much the polish people had to suffer. Warshaw was completely destroyed by the German army days before it was liberated, this is too often forgotten.