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The Pianist (2002)
Warsaw, Poland, 1939. A young famous pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), is working as a musician for the local radio. His life will change, once the Nazi start moving them to the ghettos and then to the concentration camps. He is able to escape and lives in the ruins of Warsaw.
Every time we see a war movie, we expect soldier bravery stories. At least that’s how we got used to. Our pianist is not brave. He does have moral values (refusing to work for the Jewish Police), but we’re not seeing him sacrifice as the father in “La Vita e Bella” for instance. He is not shooting anyone, he’s not winning battles for his “side”.
He is the NORMAL guy who has to survive. Who’s witnessing all the war horrors and has to find a way to just live another day. His struggle is touching us. We don’t deal with a hero, we don’t deal with a war person or a brave soldier, thirsty for some enemy blood. He is an artists, he is the pianist who gets in the middle of things and, as any normal person, could live well without all this turmoil.
Wars have innocent victims. People who are killed because of their color / religion / beliefs. Citizens who don’t kill anyone, who are taken from their homes and killed or have their families destroyed for some causes they kinda don’t care.
War connects people in this case too. People who are “by default” enemies. We saw this in The Empire of the Sun, we see this here too. In the other movie passion for airplanes befriended 2 kids, here music can make your worst enemy give you a chance.
If you are looking for long musical scenes, you are in for a disappointment. After seeing “The Piano”, I would expect to hear more music being played, since I absolutely love the piano. Still “The Pianist” doesn’t have too much playing (even if it’s of amazing quality). They “save” the scenes for the really important moments in the movie. The action is fast and the plot challenging. In my opinion Roman Polanski proved once again his amazing value.
This is not a movie you can enjoy, as you would a romantic comedy or a nice animation. This is a movie that will make you cry, it will make you ask yourself a lot of questions. It’s a painful movie and yet absolutely amazing.
Would I recommend it? Of course. Do try to get some time and watch it. Make sure you don’t have any distractions and watch it carefully. It’s a masterpiece and it would be a pity to miss it.
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I really enjoyed watching this kind of movie and I was mesmerized by the great acting skills of Adrien Brody. His character portrayal was meaningful and really put life into it. Do you have also a review of the movie Life Is Beautiful with Roberto Benini as the starring role?