Written by: Suyog Karki - 24073, Grade XI
Posted on: 09 December, 2022
Cast: Adrien Brody, Emilia Fox
Director:Roman Polanski
Studio: Focus Features
Genre: History, War, Drama
The Pianist is an Oscar-winning 2002 film. The film was shot in Poland, and also in Prague and in a German studio. The Pianist is about a young Jewish musician living in Warsaw who struggles to understand the Nazi invasion of his nation, the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the madness that led to the Holocaust. THE PIANIST is a true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody ) who was playing Chopin on a Warsaw radio station when the first German bombs fell; although the technicians run for cover, he keeps playing until a blast shatters the window of the studio, then the Jewish pianist in Poland is caught by the Nazis during World War II. Jews were imprisoned in a Ghetto and later transported to concentration camps after the Nazis seize Poland. There is a graphic violence: Men and women are shot in the head for little to no reason, a man in a wheelchair is tossed off a balcony, a man lying injured in the road is run over by a tank, wartime violence of machine-gun battles, bombed-out cities, explosions, and casualties. The movie is not too long, vivid, and there are certain unbearable emotional human moments that are its most effective scenes. The city's Jews were forced to give up their possessions and move to the Warsaw Ghetto. The pianist however escapes for a day and walks through the bright flower stalls in the crowded market outside the Ghetto. At a time when the violence committed by the Nazis against the Jews appear unforgivable, a German soldier who enjoys music shows kindness to the pianist while Jewish victims prey on one another. The closing scenes of the movie involve Szpilman's confrontation with a German captain named Wilm Hosenfeld who finds his hiding place by accident. The movie ends on the perfect bittersweet note – life and hope have returned, but no aspect of the future will remain untouched by the past.
The Pianist is not a drama, therefore it resists the need to intensify the tension or the emotion; rather, it is the pianist's narrative through his eyes of what he witnessed and what happened to him. When all the people he cared about died, Polanski remarked that his survival was not an achievement. He also stated that his mother's death in the gas chambers was still so painful that only his death would bring him closure. The Pianist is an intense movie and I think that it is a must watch for high school kids and above.
In my opinion, I would say this is one of the most powerful movies about war and the resilience of the human spirit ever made. The movie wants to inspire thought and discussion on the extremes of good and evil in humanity.
