THE Best Picture of the year (even if Chicago got the Oscar)

Rating: Null/10 (23 March 2003)

The true story of the brilliant pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew, witnesses the restrictions Nazis place on Jews in the Polish capital, from wearing stars of David on their arms to restricted access to anywhere outside the Warsaw ghetto. As his family is rounded up to be shipped off to the Nazi labor camps, he escapes deportation and eludes capture by living in the ruins of Warsaw.
You would think that Schindler's List would be the end-all of Holocaust films, but then I would say you're wrong. The film retells the horrors that the Polish Jews went through during WWII, and more specifically, of one family and one central character from that family. It is an incredible tale of survival and coming to grips with the most horrible truth imaginable - you're living in Hell imagined on Earth. The fact that the audience is not shielded from the horrors that occurred within the Warsaw Ghetto and experiences what Szpilman went through, makes for a much more heart-breaking and honest film. And having someone who had first-hand experience within the Ghetto at the helm (Polanski, who was in the Krakow Ghetto at age 7) added to the distinct feeling of authenticity that emanated from this film
Director Roman Polanski did a fantastic job with this film, and I think that it is his greatest accomplishment (and that is saying a lot, considering that Chinatown (1974) is one of the all-time greats). Adrien Brody as Szpilman is beyond amazing - who would have thought that this young man from New York could so convincingly portray the trials of a man from half-way across the world and a lifetime apart? His performance rivals the top of what was put out in 2002, and with stiff competition from Daniel Day Lewis for Gangs of New York and Jack Nicholson for About Schmidt, I believe that Brody climbs to the top of the pile with relative ease.
The Pianist is just a magnificent piece of work and should be seen by all that can stomach a heroing tale of surviving the unthinkable.
A+, this is THE best picture of the year.