Polanski's personal horror story

Rating: 8/10 (17 August 2003)

"The Pianist" tells the story not only of Szpilmann,but also of Polanski himself.A lot of the scenes are directly from his youth in the ghetto of Warsaw.This makes this movie even more impressive.
Although the entire movie is very good,I personally was the most impressed by the first hour or so(until Szpilmann's family is put on the train to the concentration camp).this part is truly about the absolute horror of the holocaust and it shows the terrible circumstances in which the Jewish people had to live.Adrien Brody plays brilliant and deserves the Oscar he received,he is almost in every scene the main character!
Still,there are a few things that annoyed me in this movie.First of all the fact that the Nazi's speak German but the Polish people speak English(!?),this is really a shame since it takes away a lot of the realism of the movie.Roman Polanski should have said:Up yours! to the producers and big bosses of the studio's and should have let everybody speak in their native language.It is not consistent,or how we would say in Holland:He who says A,must also say B. Another thing is the,what I call,"overkill"-scene.This is the scene in which a couple of Jews are to lie down on the ground while a Nazi shoots them in the back of the face.The last Jew is a friend of Szpilmann and what I feared for happened.The gun of the Nazi is out of bullets when he wants to shoot him,so he has to replace the cartridge.This to me is too Hollywoodish and was not needed in this movie,it is too much sensation and gore! The last bad thing happens at the end.Szpilmann sees the Russians come into the Ghetto in which he hides.He comes out to celebrate,but he's wearing a Nazi coat that he got from a moderate,"human", Nazi(if there are any).The Russians of course think he is the enemy,so they start shooting,I figured that they would kill him so that Polanski shows that this is the true horror and unnecessary factor that is war.But no,Szpilmann runs through the Ghetto like Arnold Schwarzenegger and he is not hit by one of the many bullets.This is again too much Hollywood,it is not realistic.
Although there are a few flaws in the movie that are a shame,(especially the English speaking Polish people)it still remains as one of the best and most impressive Holocaust movies ever made(to me Schindler's List is better,probably because it was made first,so that any other holocaust movie doesn't look like a real add-on).This movie is a definitely not unnecessary and it is very important as a historic piece of art. 9/10