Not brilliant and issue-ridden

Rating: 7/10 (30 May 2003)

First, I don't believe in praising people for anything who refuse to face their criminal actions. What if Timothy McVeigh had made a good movie? The scale of the crime is different but the principle is the same. What if the guy who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart turned out to be this really cool dude with an artistic vision? Would Hollywood give either of these people a standing ovation at the Oscars? What if Polanski had violated one of their 13 year-old children? I think the outcome would have been a bit different. (For you kids who came along late in the game--The victim was 13 and Polanski raped her and fled to Europe to escape punishment. France would be the country that lets him live freely as a fugitive from justice, if you hadn't guessed that already.)
But the movie itself angers me as well. Critics, paid and not, have praised everything about this movie--its honesty, artistry, acting, etc. Sure, it's a technically fine movie. Smarter critics have noted that it isn't a predictable "triuph of human spirit". It is wholly observational as some have mentioned. But the underlying premise of this movie is unbearable and could only be made by a man like Polanski, who thinks that art erases crime. The premise is that the artist must be spared no matter what, even if he doesn't want to be. Good, decent people must die, kind of like sacrifices, for the greater artist who must live live live, no matter what kind of person they are. Only Hollywood would applaud this diabolical level of narcissism. Ethical human beings, artists and others, would not. If Polanski were honest and upstanding he would have made a movie about a film director coincidentally spared in the Holocaust who tragically lost his wife and unborn child and then went on to drug and rape a thirteen year old girl (a passion he continued unhindered in Europe. Just ask Kinski.) Let's see the child molestation film, Polanski. (That people *thank* him on this site is truly bewildering. I hope you don't plan to introduce him to your adolescent daughters.)
This movie is also a big flip-off to the US (why not Germany? why not make this film in Polish or French? It was aimed like a warhead to the US.) Polanski seems to snicker to himself at our gullibility, at our reliable tendency to confuse the appreciation of art with establishing our own identities. You are what you like in America. And Polanski cleverly capitalizes on this national identity crisis. There are the people who trip over themselves to stutter about their favorite artists, and they use the word "artist" as an insult to the less informed. Those people generally love Polanski. And he knows it. Here is the movie to prove it.
Completely without reference to its creator, "The Pianist" is only a pretty good movie. You know the story and you've more or less seen the scenes and heard the dialogue in other movies. There is nothing new here in writing or direction. It is well acted (Brody was just fine)and stark enough with enough shocking scenes to elucidate a little of the terror of the Holocaust. I have, however, seen more gripping scenes about the same subject (see: The Grey Zone, among others). "The Pianist" doesn't have smooth edges (the other reason it's gotten so much acclaim. I'm surprised there's not some Indie formula now to rough up the edges of movies. Hint hint--don't be neat. Leave your movie's shoes untied.) But overall, this movie is not a great accomplishment. Polanski should have the courage to tell his own story and face its consequences in the real world instead of pandering to actors and the US indie crowd. He is a coward and a criminal and we should view his movies through that lens. Polanski is trying to tell us something with this movie, but I don't think what he's trying to say is honorable.