The dramatic power of Polanski meets the dramatic power of the Piano

Rating: 8/10 (28 January 2009)

There is something about the piano instrument that is deeply dramatic itself. Something rooted within its very nature of high and low keys, and the way they sound when the pianist strikes its keys soft or hard. The sound that it creates reaches down your throat and in your heart. All in all, its delicate and hardcore sound makes it the perfect instrument to describe and represent all sorts of dramatic stories, including Polanski's the Pianist.
Many might not find its slow pacing too attractive. Indeed, the bit in between when he find himself living in the outside world in complete secrecy loses much of its suspance on repeated viewing. But the feeling of claustrophobia is the haunting one that Polanski wanted us to feel. This is not Schindler's List, a film about the hope to be helped. This is a film about the hopelessness of being helped, and the surprise and somewhat guilt of the times that help he is received. It is the story of Jewish Polish pianist Szpielman, played by a brilliant Adrian Brody, who captures all the desperation, all the fraility with his dramatic technique as much as with his physical outlook; his casting is perfect. And Polanski's ways of telling such a disturbing dark story is something he can do well, and since Chinatown, we know that he has the guts to end it badly. The whole ending sequence is almost shocking, when we see the Polish soldiers charge at him, we can almost believe that Polanski will end it in such a depressingly ironic way.
The cinematography is beautiful, as are a lot of things in this film, which is one that will haunt you the most based on the holocaust. And that is mostly thanks to Polanski because he is a filmmakers with balls. He is dangerously unpredictable, he knows what pain and sorrow is, and knows how to transfer it on screen. And it helps if you have an interpretive piece of piano that symbolises everything, and has such an energy to symbolise it.
WATCH FOR THE MOMENT - When the Polish soldiers charge Brody. What an ironic way to go...