One of the most moving films about the war that I know

Rating: 9/10 (20 January 2017)

There have been innumerable films about World War II, but relatively few about the Holocaust, a subject which, at least for the first few decades after the war, seemed to daunt film-makers by its very enormity. Since the 1980s, however, there have been some fine attempts to come to terms with the most notorious crime of the twentieth century, including Pakula's "Sophie's Choice" and Spielberg's "Schindler's List". Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" is another to add to this list.
The film is based on the autobiography of Władysław Szpilman, a Jewish pianist, who survived the Nazi occupation of Poland. (As one character points out, Szpilman's surname is an appropriate one; it is a Polonised form of "Spielmann", the German for "musician"). In September 1939 the Szpilman family are living in relative middle-class comfort in Warsaw when they learn that the country has been invaded by Germany. The film then traces the way in which the situation of Poland, and especially of its Jewish community, deteriorates throughout the course of the war- the passing of anti-Jewish laws, the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto in November 1940 and finally the deportations to the concentration camps beginning in 1942. By a stroke of chance Szpilman is separated from his family when they are deported to Treblinka extermination camp. For a time he becomes a slave labourer, but manages to escape and is sheltered by non-Jewish friends linked to the Polish resistance, surviving while thousands are dying around him and while his city is gradually turned into a wasteland of rubble.
A key scene comes towards the end of the film. Much of the city, including the building in which Szpilman was sheltering, has been destroyed in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944, and Szpilman is desperately trying to hide in a ruined building when he is discovered by a German officer named Wilm Hosenfeld. Hosenfeld guesses that Szpilman is Jewish, but takes pity on him and spares his life, even bringing him food and giving him a coat to help him survive.
Szpilman's story had a deep personal significance for Polanski, himself a Polish Jew who managed to survive the war in hiding, although other members of his family, including his mother, died. It is therefore unsurprising that it has a greater emotional resonance than many of Polanski's earlier films, which can often be rather emotionally cool. Szpilman is a gifted musician, but his survival has very little to do with his talent and a great deal to do with the kindness of others and with sheer luck. It is a role which called for a superb actor, and Polanski was fortunate enough to find one in the shape of Adrien Brody, who won a well-deserved "Best Actor" Oscar. (Strangely enough, Brody was not the director's first choice for the role- that was Joseph Fiennes, who was unavailable). Brody's Szpilman becomes a sort of Everyman figure, a tragic version of Chaplin's Little Tramp, stumbling his way through a city which has been reduced to a vision of Hell on Earth. As Roger Ebert put it, he is not a fighter or a hero but a survivor.
Polanski himself won the "Best Director" award. The film was nominated for Best Picture, but lost to "Chicago". "The Pianist" is a harrowing record of man's inhumanity to man, but it is also a film with a message of hope in that it shows how even unspeakable barbarity like that of the Nazis cannot altogether extinguish man's better instincts, shown by the kindness and bravery of Szpilman's friends and his defiant rendition of Chopin's Grande Polonaise Brillante at the end. It is one of the most moving films about the war that I know, comparable in this respect to either Pakula's or Spielberg's. 9/10