No Hollywood studio would ever have dared touched this one...

Rating: 10/10 (28 March 2003)

A film usually is a great film because of the emotion it evokes from the audience. It is usually great because it shows us the 'reality' of life during troubled times. This film does both, and more. Yet, you almost never are moved to anything more than the verge of tears. You don't ever feel sorry for any of the characters including Szpilman. It is extremely existentialist, with a eerie Beckett-esque feel to it through out. The scene of the soup-snatcher and of the old Jew man being thrown off his wheelchair from his balcony high above the pavement couldn't have been written better by Beckett himself. The whole idea of the music playing in your head is so enchanting, yet you don't ever feel depressed but instead smile and hear the music in your own head. The scene of Szpilman playing the piano yet not playing it, is something that will continue to haunt me for a long time. Brody is Szpilman, every character is their own person, no one could have replaced them and none could have done another role. The music pieces are brilliantly chosen from a wide collection of the work that Szpilman played, so is the cinematography. This film would have been so easily about Szpilman's heroic life, instead it's about his music, and his survival to play that music, nothing more, nothing less. It's not about the Jewish cause, it's not about the life of his family members, it's not even about his love story. It's a very rare film. And by the end of the film, you're left with a sense of incompleteness which must have been Szpilman's life but his music seems to fill that void for him and for us as well. I wouldn't say it's a must see, because that would be a term you'd associate with a Hollywood blockbuster, this is a must know.