Polanski's revival

Rating: 7/10 (23 August 2003)

This is probably the best film he has done since "Chinatown". That doesn't say very much however. It has been a sad thing to see what Polanski has been up to, during the 80s and 90s.
This is a melodrama. You've seen much of it before, but of course you might need to see it again. But there are also aspects here, that you don't find in average movies about the subject. The total loneliness of the main character is what this is about and that's not a loneliness only in WW2 Poland, but for all times. That is the main point here and it's obvious in the scene there the main character walks totally by himself in the ruins.
The dialogue is still the weak part and the fact that Polish-Jewish victims speak English to each other is not acceptable. If the "market" demanded that, Polanski should have had the integrity to refuse. This is commercialism at its worst and takes the film down to a lower level.