Empty Movie

Rating: Null/10 (13 April 2003)

The Pianist is simply horrific, in the sense that it is filled with horror, and not much else. Like Saving Private Ryan and most other recent movies in the Holocaust/WWII genre, the violence is spectacularly well done.
The scene where the Nazis throw an old man in a wheel chair out of a window is as gut-wrenching as any you'll ever see, as are the numerous summary executions and a scene where a tank fires into Brody's building.
But so what?
Adrian Brody is an anti-character. He projects zero presence, says nothing of any interest, and practically does nothing for the entire movie. Its as if Polanski was out looking for a story set with the Holocaust as backdrop and gave up, giving us a look at an uninteresting human being who essentially does nothing while great events unfold around him.
And while the visual panorama is spectacular, not even the music is well done. One would tend to expect to hear a lot of music in a movie about one of the better pianists of the twentieth century. Instead, we hear very little, and then only at the beginning and at the end, where it is inserted awkwardly. The camera centers mostly on Brody's fingers (if Brody is indeed playing), as if purposely to deny any connection between the Chopin and what's going on outside - a silly aim to say the least.