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January 10, 2003
Pianist in tune to reality
Roman Polanski's latest film is really about choices.
KYLE BERGER REPORTER
It is very difficult to assess Roman Polanski's award-winning film,
The Pianist. While many films leave both professional and
armchair reviewers with almost an immediate opinion about the movie
they just viewed, The Pianist demands deeper thought and
consideration.
The Pianist is Polish filmmaker Polanski's latest effort, based
on the autobiography of celebrated composer and pianist Wladyslaw
Szpilman (Adrien Brody).
It tells the graphic story of how Szpilman eluded deportation, then,
with the help of some friends and strangers, escaped the Warsaw
Ghetto to spend more than three years running and hiding right under
the noses of the Nazis. In the end, it was his passion for music
that ultimately allowed him to survive.
The Pianist is really a movie about choices. As Szpilman ran
from hideaway to hideaway, often with Nazi bullets or tank shells
just a few feet behind him, he was faced with life-changing decisions
at every turn. The film is written in such a way that when the audience
isn't watching what Szpilman experienced himself, they are watching
what he witnessed as he peaked outside cracked windows. This serves
to entice the audience into analyzing what their own decisions might
have been in similar situations.
One of the choices Szpilman makes near the end of the film results
in nearly lethal irony. When he finally came out from hiding to
join the liberating Russian soldiers and other Polish survivors
on the streets of Warsaw, he was wearing a jacket given to him by
a compassionate German soldier who helped him survive the final
days of the war. Just as he felt safe for the first time in years,
his coat was identified by Russian soldiers who shot and almost
killed him.
The two-and-a-half-hour film could have been shortened significantly
by cutting out many redundant scenes as Szpilman continually changed
hiding spots to stay one step ahead of the Nazis. However, cutting
those scenes may not have given justice to the sense of time that
played such a crucial role in Szpilman's struggle to survive. In
one case, a couple of weeks without food almost led to Szpilman's
death.
Polanski also offered a unique, yet honest, look into the character
and emotion of the Warsaw Jews as Nazi Germany took over their lives.
In one scene, as Szpilman's family sat down for dinner in their
small ghetto apartment, the mother (Maureen Lipman) asked that only
positive things be discussed that night. Szpilman's rebellious brother
Henryk (Ed Stoppard) offered what he called a funny story about
a successful Polish surgeon who had been brought into the ghetto
to work on a Jewish patient. As surgery began, the doctor, patient
and everyone else in the room were shot and killed. The humor, as
Henryk pointed out, was that the Jew was already under anesthetics
and, therefore, was the only one that didn't feel a thing.
The Pianist is certainly worth watching. With that said,
interested movie-goers should be warned that The Pianist
is a very graphic movie. If you found Schindler's List hard
to watch, you may be better off avoiding the film and reading the
book instead.
Adding to the list of four previous Academy Award nominations for
Polanski, The Pianist was the recipient of the best picture
award at the 2002 Cannes International Film Festival.
At the age of seven, Polanski himself escaped the Krakow Ghetto
through a hole in a barbed-wire fence. The Pianist marks
the first film he made in Poland in more than 40 years.
The Pianist opens Jan. 10 and will be showing daily at Fifth
Avenue Cinemas at 3:30, 6:45 and 9:50 p.m. and at 12:15 p.m. on
Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Tuesdays.
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