The Pianist

Rating: 9/10 (20 October 2008)

"Music was his passion. Survival was his masterpiece."
Filmmaker Roman Polanski, who as a boy growing up in Poland watched while the Nazis devastated his country during World War II, directed this downbeat drama based on the true story of a privileged musician who spent five years struggling against the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is a gifted classical pianist born to a wealthy Jewish family in Poland. The Szpilmans have a large and comfortable flat in Warsaw which Wladyslaw shares with his mother and father (Maureen Lipman and Frank Finlay), his sisters Halina and Regina (Jessica Kate Meyer and Julia Rayner), and his brother, Henryk (Ed Stoppard). While Wladyslaw and his family are aware of the looming presence of German forces and Hitler's designs on Poland, they're convinced that the Nazis are a menace which will pass, and that England and France will step forward to aid Poland in the event of a real crisis. Wladyslaw's naïveté is shattered when a German bomb rips through a radio studio while he performs a recital for broadcast. During the early stages of the Nazi occupation, as a respected artist, he still imagines himself above the danger, using his pull to obtain employment papers for his father and landing a supposedly safe job playing piano in a restaurant. But as the German grip tightens upon Poland, Wladyslaw and his family are selected for deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. Refusing to face a certain death, Wladyslaw goes into hiding in a comfortable apartment provided by a friend. However, when his benefactor goes missing, Wladyslaw is left to fend for himself and he spends the next several years dashing from one abandoned home to another, desperate to avoid capture by German occupation troops. The Pianist was based on the memoir of the same name by the real-life Wladyslaw Szpilman; the book was first published in 1946 as Death of a City, but was banned by Polish Communist officials and went out of print until 1998, when a new edition was issued as The Pianist.
Review The Pianist is a stunning masterpiece directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrien Brody in quite possibly the best role he's ever done. He basically carried the film whole throughout and I'm glad to say he carried it real good. Some scenes required no dialogue, only the body movement and the raw emotion of Adrien Brody, it was just a spectacle. I can see why he won the Oscars, he really deserved it. He gave his all in this masterpiece of a film and he reaped the golden fruits of his labor. Roman Polanski on the other hand, excellently handled the camera, he showed exactly what needs to be shown, no BS.
The film tackles very sensitive topics and Polanski didn't even flinch, he wants us to see the grimness of those dark days. Example, there's this one scene where this lady asked an SS Officer where they're taking them and the SS Officer without remorse, shot the lady point blank in the head. Just so dark and grim and he wanted us to see it all.
A tip of the hat to the cast and crew of The Pianist for making such a masterpiece. This is a fine film that you wouldn't want to miss.