The Pianist
Focus Features’ inaugural year brings us what is surely to become a dramatic classic. 2002 was particularly chock full of quality, and I hope this smaller, quieter, sadder film is not ignored. It will affect you for some time after watching it, so proceed with that knowledge.
Hangdog actor Adrien Brody plays the titular Wladyslaw Szpilman (who also wrote the book on which this film is based), a Jewish pianist and well-loved radio celebrity in 1939 Warsaw. War is declared on Nazi Germany, and as will come to no surprise to most watching, the Jewish Poles in Warsaw were herded into a cramped ghetto area, before being deported to less fortunate circumstances in 1942. The Pianist deals with nothing new as a film subject, but nothing about the Holocaust fails to be incredibly shocking. Szpilman has friends, he secures favors, partially because of his fame and respect, but also through simple fortune. As a result, he hides, scrabbling to survive, through unbelievable trials and situations, to emerge from the horror by the end. (I have told you nothing you cannot figure out if he wrote a book about his experience).
We have been inundated with facts about the Holocaust for years, horrifying, morbid, terrifying, and simply unimaginable. Szpilman’s journey is pained by the simplest of small humiliations and indignities before the cumulative terror is truly realized. However, while watching, the more accessible discomforts and poignant loss ring all the more deeply for being comprehensible. Brody’s face begins thin and sensitive and quiet, his sad eyes raise hesitantly under long lashes even in the happy times. He is reduced, in some ways, by the end, yet never fully forgets himself. For all the years of the German occupation, he essentially cannot make a sound for fear of discovery. Anne Frank had her writing to console her; all Wladyslaw has are the 88 keys that must remain mute for him to remain alive. We are reminded of what is missing for him by the title of the film. He remains a pianist even when forced to be a refugee, a beggar, a stowaway, a burglar, a patient, a scavenger, and a comforter.
Occasionally I found some historical elements perplexing, based on my own sketchy high school education which ends at World War II (”And then Hitler invaded some countries, rounded up the Jews and exterminated them, Japan hit Pearl Harbor and we joined and won the war. Have a great summer!”), insofar as details on how and when the German armies were in and out of Warsaw and when the work and detainment camps made the transition into death camps. However, this film is a very personal drama, about one man and his experience, framed by the tragic history surrounding his story. Brody is in nearly every frame of the film, and he must not only carry the film’s heart, but also its soul and mind. We must feel his agonies, and we do. We feel the simple frustration at needing water, his fears and gratitude and even the shadow of his preparedness to die. I hope that director Roman Polansky can win his way back into the American film community’s favor after this very sensitive, quiet, moving film.
MPAA Rating R for violence and brief strong language.
Release date 12/27/02 (LA/NY)
Time in minutes 148
Director Roman Polanski
Studio Focus Features
