"You can't change history by turning a few faces to the wall"

Rating: 9/10 (9 May 2007)

Pandit Nehru,India's first Prime Minister,used to display pictures of former Colonial Governors in his palace.When questioned about this practise he said "You can't change history by turning a few faces to the wall".Roman Polanski is clearly an adherent of this school of thought.If you want to know why Europe will never become the Super - State so beloved of liberal politicians you have only to watch "The Pianist". Too much blood has been spilled on the streets and plains of that benighted continent for the sovereign nations within its boundaries ever to live in anything but wary suspicion of one another. From the Balkans to the Mediterranean tribal hatreds have reigned supreme for a thousand years. To the Polish people it made little difference whether the Germans or the Russians occupied their country.In implementing the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, the Germans ethnically cleansed Warsaw. Later,fearing a resurgence of Polish militarism,the Russians took 20,000 army officers,intellectuals and aristocrats and shot them dead in the infamous Katyn Forest massacre.Not content with perpetrating this appalling atrocity,the Russians then did their best to make sure the Germans were blamed for it. Later still,rather than offend his "good friend" Stalin,Churchill declined to interfere with the Russian dictator's plans for thousands of Polish prisoners of war,thus condemning them to a lingering death in the Gulags. It would hardly be surprising then if Poland were to look at its E.U. colleagues in a rather jaundiced fashion. As well as demolishing for ever the pipe dream of Europeans living together in brotherly love,"The Pianist" also looks at the idea of the role of the artist in a disintegrating society. Here he observes rather than participates, and survives. Of course many musicians and entertainers collaborated with the Nazis and lived well under their patronage.But this option was not available to a Jew from the Warsaw ghetto. Spiellman survives by becoming the Invisible Jew right up until the end of the German Occupation when his last hiding place is discovered by a Wermacht officer who,recognising his artistry,helps him to survive. Unfortunately he is not able to return the favour as the officer dies in a Russian p.o.w. camp a full seven years after the war actually ended. Mr Polanski's vision is a bleak one indeed. The brutalisation of an intelligent and sensitive man who gradually becomes a zombie - like figure totally unresponsive to the horrors around him,desiring only one thing - his personal survival. The contempt for human life shown by "ordinary" German soldiers,shooting Jews at random for no better reason other than that they could. Images linger;a man in a wheelchair being tipped over a balcony,a young woman shot in the head at point blank range for asking what was happening,ghetto police beating their fellow Jews enthusiastically to gain the approval of their masters,the Wermacht officer listening poker - faced to the "untermenschen" Jew playing Chopin on a grand piano and,most disturbing of all - and demonstrating the utter futility of hope - the look on the face of the man on the end of the row of workers being summarily executed when the killer's pistol runs out of ammunition.Thinking he has been spared he dares to look up for a second or two before the magazine is replaced and he shares the fate of his colleagues. Spiellman,"The Pianist",untermenschen,invisible Jew,zombie,died at the age of 88 in 2000.I don't know whether he ever forgave;he certainly never forgot.If Polanski's movie helps to ensure that what happened to him and millions like him is never forgotten then not a single frame of it has been wasted.