Speechless

Rating: 10/10 (23 May 2003)

This movie left me speechless, but I'll try to write some words down though. ;-)
I'm quite a picky person when it comes to cinema, and I -almost- always find something to criticize, except for a very little group of movies (this far, 8 movies out of 600+ that I've seen..) that I found flawless. "The Pianist" is among them. You don't say.
I knew that Polanski is a great filmmaker, for sure, but I'd never expected him to take the whole thing so seriously, putting SO MUCH dedication into creating such a fine piece of art.
Polanski has avoided all of the traps common to movies in its genre (the first one coming to one's mind being "Schindler's list, though to me those are very different movies), and chose to make no compromise at all. No heroism, no cheap emotionally manipulative scenes, no off "dramatic" music, nothing to try to grasp the attention of the immature modern film viewer. He decided to make ART, and more than that, he decided to do that with such a heart, and such dignity, that even without the truly mind-blowing filming savoir-faire he used in "The Pianist", the movie would have been excellent. But he obviously wanted more, doing his best to serve the story told. I guess he's been preparing this movie with great care, and for a long time.
Polanski has set, with "The Pianist", a new standard in cinematic excellence. The use of the camera eye is the best I've seen so far since "2001" and "Barry Lyndon", and goes even further than these movies in its ability to create a sense of "being there". Kubrick left this path for further movies, exploring different (and most of the time very interesting) possibilities. Cronenberg shows the same kind of ability sometimes, but he's focused on a very different aspect of the human's mind (that's the least to say).
The focus here is more timeless, it's difficult to put into words, I mean it's not possible to actually EXPLAIN what Polanski has achieved with "The Pianist" unless, maybe, someone very talented writes a whole book about it *LOL*. No, this is art, pure art, and relies on the honesty, humanity and total dedication of a *human being*, who just happens to be one of the best filmmakers around. What the film does, that "2001" did not, is telling a straight story. It had to, considering the humanist goal. But it also creates this beautiful cinematic poetry, powerfully evocative, that was the signature of "2001" and "Barry Lyndon", and more recently of Lynch's -more "arty"- "Mullholland drive". I'd say that "The Pianist" reconciles humanist storytelling with cinematic audiovisual poetry, in a way that will be very difficult to outmatch.
Maybe that the problem of the movie, which I don't consider as a flaw, is that in the context of modern cinema, "The Pianist" may seem weak and flat to the fast movies young addicts created by the movie industry. Those will find in "Schindler's list" a more familiar tone, where heroism and human values are portrayed in the Hollywood manipulative fashion that Spielberg masters oh so well. It's a pity, as "The Pianist" is a far more authentic and honest work than anything Spielberg will ever be able to achieve. Polanski doesn't want to manipulate us in any way in "The Pianist" (though he showed in the past that he's very good with cinematic manipulative tools, think about "Rosemary's baby"!!), he wants - IMO - to offer us an opportunity to make our own journey through the events shown, leaving just the right amount of space needed for some meditation. He doesn't try to teach us a lesson, he wants us to consider what is being told and make our own opinion about it. This absence of manicheism (no good VS evil here) is one of the most beautiful demonstrations of moral integrity in the history of arts.
Oh, well, if your favorite movies ever are Aliens, The Matrix or Gladiator, don't even try "The Pianist", you'll be bored to death. Wait for some more years, until your taste adjusts, before meeting this masterpiece.
My personal award: on par with any masterpiece of the 7th art, including the very best of Kubrick, Kurosawa, Lynch or the Coen brothers (only to mention a few).