Don't beg for the right to live-take it!

Rating: 10/10 (19 November 2003)

BEFORE I start.I want to say something to this film detractors:give me something more coherent than 'this film is dull?'.And to all the Polanski detractors:GET IT OVER,MAN!. If you don't appreciate THE PIANIST then you are:1-Not a cinephile 2-You got no soul!.
_An Appreciation_
`Our hope can come only from the hopeless'.

THE PIANIST just moved me the way no other film did.This realistic film has not a wasted scene(all the scenes are just perfection!).But you can't say ` I liked the Pianist','like' is a superficial word.With THE PIANIST you fell more impressed,with a feeling of AWE and after I saw it I feel totally exhausted!.
The protagonist, Adrein Brody,well,he is so convincing as WLADEK SZPILMAN that he is not 'acting' really.When you saw actors like ROBERT DE NIRO or AL PACINO,you already know all of their `tricks'.How they would react,because they are imbued with the' acting methods'.Brody as SZPILMAN is so out of manners,that it looks so frank,he is just a SOUL.In the first scene ,the film presented us to this artist: he continues to play Chopin in a radio studio while German shells explode outside.This scene is a powerful statement to his personality.It's interesting to see him changing from a well-dressed ,educated man to a phantom like figure starving to death.I would give him another Oscar!.
The behind the camera' talent of Polanski is unquestionable.Every scene are so breath taking and so real that this film is HUMAN HERITAGE,can't be treated just like another film about Holocaust BUT AS A PROVE OF THE HISTORY.Polanski fans will appreciate even more The Pianist because of `the small details' that maybe the average film goer would overlook it :that poor woman asking to the people in the streets if they have seen her husband;or this young mother regretful: 'why I did it'.,or another woman with a dying child in her arms begging for a drop of water.THAT DETAIL where SZPILMAN is at the tram,there is a special seat section in the tram for `Germans only',just notice where and how he lays down his hand before this scene fades out.
In the first part of the film we witness how Szpilman's family and an entire group of `individuals' are subjected to humiliations,degradations and random shots by the Nazies(the death is unexpected and doesn't make any sense,without any purpose,the German soldier puts out the gun,stuck in the woman's face and kills her_a woman shot in the street falling into a crouching position).For example the scene when Szpilman's father was insulted by The German officers while walking the pavement in the reality this happened to Polanski's father.And how this people are left to starvation(desperation) only to lose their own dignity.Polanski camera never hesitates.The violent is show without tricks in a cold way and how it really was.Also the film is very effective by showing the most atrocious violence against the most vulnerable people:The elderly people;cripples;pregnant women and CHILDREN: an image with a tiny boy smuggler whom Szpilman tries to rescue(Polanski,as a boy himself, was a smuggler during this period). A nightmarish state where we see corpses of children laid in the streets. It is not an coincidence that Polanski next project would be OLIVER TWIST. Szpilman,as Oliver,is left orphan and completely alone:deserted by a God,a country and the rest.Our Pianist as Oliver Twist survived thanks to the generosity of strangers. `Survival as an abstraction' or instinctive ?(in one scene Szpilman pretends to be a corpse!).
In one scene,after Wladek's family disappeared,he walks confused to the streets and enters at a building.There is someone that hisses to him:is a man hidden inside a wardrobe and `invites' Szpilman to enter the hidden place or to `the coffin like shelter'(Polanski loves wardrobes,cupboards_it appeared in his famous films.If Luis Buñuel used shoes as fetish,Polanski uses this furniture as shields).There are many scenes that reflects the absurdity of a War State(its main focus is irrationality;cruelty ; annihilation and starvation) total `dispossession'.One of the woman of helped Szpilman,Dorota(EMILIA FOX)said in two scenes 'It's too absurd'(concerning the anti Jew restrictions). Wladyslaw Szpilman,the Pianist, abandoned his Chopin melodies only to hide himself in places where he can't get out,or by doing jobs as a mason.Thanks to one friend ,Wlad ek stays locked in an apartment.One of the man who visits him gives Szpilman an advice:'if the Nazies arrive,it's better that they don't catch you alive.In one nerve-racking scene,Szpilman sees below from the window that the German soldiers are entering the building,we hear 'steps noises `and just in case Szpilman opens the window,ready to jump.(luckily they are not there for him!).
In The Pianist the historical facts are presented not in a explanatory way,I guess Polanski don't want o underestimate his audience,you should know about the insurrection in the Warsaw Ghetto on April 19th, 1943 and one year later the Warsaw Uprising.In the apartment Szpilman observes from the window `helplessness,this two important events(in a previous scene we see the Warsaw people receiving help from the allies,the supplies of food were dropped from British airplanes.It's shown only for a few seconds,as Szpilman looks at the sky and observes how the packages fell down ,it's a great sequence).
Szpilman later hides in another apartment located in the other side of the Ghetto wall,there Wladek gets ill we witness another absurdity of war: in front of his apartment,there is a 'German' hospital but he can't go there for obvious reasons.(once again the lovely Dorota got a Doctor for him).Wladek survives his illness,but as many Polanski films_ if the situation is bad it will become even worst!.A tank in the streets is aiming to Szpilman's building-we hear the sound of the impact,Wladek runs away to the door but it was locked!, later we hear another impact,the soundtrack in that moment is of a damaged hearing after a big noise,this reminds me of that sequence in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN where Tom Hanks went sudden deaf.
In many scenes of the Pianist Polanski show us `hunger and starvation' and how terrible it must be.One even prefers to die by a gun shot rather than die(slowly) of hungry.That increasing suffering of Szpilman,especially when he struggles to open a tin can of pickles,his loneliness,FEAR and an empty stomach.that make us wonder why Szpilman didn't lost his mind,his humanity?.His attitude surprised me. After the people helped him,he didn't forget the say `thank you'.Szpilman gave a new meaning of the word `THANK YOU'.
One of the most memorable moments I ever witnessed in a film in when Szpilman encounters the handsome Captain Wilm Hosenfeld(as one user comment accurately wrote': The can falls off the mantle of the fireplace, then rolls to the seemingly ominous feet of a lone German officer.') Here, however, Polanski -had to intervene: the encounter in the film is dramatic and moving, indeed. There is a classic shot of Hosenfeld,with the camera moving slowly upwards from his leather boots, showing the whole awesome beauty of the Nazi uniform-one of the favorite aesthetic devices of filmmakers.(the contrast between this two men is impressive)
In this abandoned house(his last shelter)Hosenfeld asks Szpilman who he is, what he's doing in the abandoned house, and what he used to be.Szpilman stutters `a pianist'.We perceive a piano there ,so,the Captain ask him to play.In this moment' the musician takes place' .We hear for minutes how he plays Chopin.The sun ray from a window lay down to his dishevelled hair,the same light gives a singular effect to his nose.It looks like as it becomes transparent.It give us the sensation that he is half ghost -half flesh and bone.We also perceive that Szpilman don't want to stop playing.He is afraid because he doesn't know yet `the intentions of the German Captain.I presume that the pianist thought.'I will die after I stop playing'.(after he finishes the piece,just look at his hands).
But Wilm Hosenfeld is one of his last saviors(giving him food,an `opener' and a coat).Szpilman once again said the word THANK YOU.Myself ,I have to thank to Brody,Polanski, the real Szpilman(with his wonderful memoir) and the entire cast. Thank you very much for this Masterpiece.
Also I have to say that the sound of this film is outstanding ,from the first scene: the explosion in the radio station_ to the sequence where the German soldiers are marching in the streets of Warsaw(the sound of their leather boots has a powerful effect,to the contrary in Pink Floyd `The wall' the image of this marching hammer is the powerful one ).Also `the absence of MUSIC haunts THE PIANIST,his solitary moments.The camera catches Szpilman fingering some unheard Nocturne,playing a phantom piano in a chamber of his memory'.
And finally One shot I'll never forget: the ragged Szpilman walks toward us from the middle distance, down a wide, absolutely devastated,empty street in a City we know as Martyr.
10/10