The most personal Polanski possible

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2019)

That the Second World War was cruel and barbaric is nothing new. A movie about this war with only battle scenes (how spectacular they might be) is therefore "middle of the road". To become a real classic war movie the film needs something special.
This something special can be an "extra", for example an unusual story line. Think of "The best years of our lives" (1946, William Wyler) about reintegration of the soldiers in civil society, or "Der Untergang" (2004, Oliver Hirschbiegel) about the last few days of Hitler sinking into (ever deeper) madness in his shelter in Berlin.
In "The pianist" the special element is the leaving out of all heroism. Pianist Szpilman (Adrien Brody) survives pure by accident. He is not a hero but a spectator. Polanski, who survived the Holocaust himself, knows what he is talking (filming) about. He refused to co-operate in "Schindler's List" (1993, Steven Spielberg), a film in which heroism is an essential element.
In "The pianist" (piano)music is a powerfull antidote to barbarism. In his performance over the First World War the Dutch comedian Diederik van Vleuten tells the story of the French composer Maurice Ravel who writes a piece of pianomusic that can be played with the left arm only for the German pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in the First World War. In both wars pianomusic therefore softened the damages that the war has done.