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The Pianist [2003]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

Winner of the prestigious Golden Palm award at the 2002 Cannes film festival, The Pianist is the film that Roman Polanski was born to direct. A childhood survivor of Nazi-occupied Poland, Polanski was uniquely suited to tell the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew and concert pianist (played by Adrien Brody) who witnessed the Nazi invasion of Warsaw, miraculously eluded the Nazi death camps, and survived throughout World War II by hiding among the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto. Unlike any previous dramatization of the Nazi holocaust, The Pianist steadfastly maintains its protagonist's singular point of view, allowing Polanski to create an intimate odyssey on an epic wartime scale, drawing a direct parallel between Szpilman's tenacious, primitive existence and the wholesale destruction of the city he refuses to abandon. Uncompromising in its physical and emotional authenticity, The Pianist strikes an ultimate note of hope and soulful purity. As with Schindler's List, it's one of the greatest films ever made about humanity's darkest chapter. --Jeff Shannon


Stunning
Review date: 2008-09-27 Rating: 10 out of 10

Incredibly gripping film based on a true story. Goes to great lengths to show the horrors of the Holocaust. Brilliantly directed and brilliantly acted, it's a rare Hollywood film that doesn't get all sentimental like the other war films.

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Reviews


Harwood is a genius !
Review date: 2008-08-21 Rating: 10 out of 10




When I first saw this in the cinema when it first came out, it was empty. For whatever reason no one went to see it.

Then it won Oscars and people now think it a great film. I sometimes wonder if they are affected by the awards. I don't think it was that well reviewed on first release.

I saw Ronald Harwood recently in Bradford. I have his screenwriting book. He said that he was chosen by the director to write it because he, Harwood had just written Taking Sides which is set in WWII and it about music. And you only thought actors were typecast.

I do wonder if the book on which it is based is any good.

The film really should be watched in all schools, now and at all times in the future. So few children these days know anything about history - before 1990, that films like this are an important tool to help them understand the horrors of mankind and how to prevent them in the future.


Surviving destruction and genocide
Review date: 2008-06-05 Rating: 10 out of 10

The Pianist is the true story of the struggle to survive the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto of Polish Jewish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman.

It tells how he survived against the odds , hiding in various parts of the city , before his life was saved by a German officer , who despised the Nazis brutality and genocide , a true righteous gentile , Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
Unlike many personal holocaust accounts , which are of concentration and death camps , this one is an account of life and death in the Warsaw ghetto.

The movie portrays life and death in the ghetto : the disease , the starvation and the Nazi mass murders of hundreds of thousands of men , women and children. The imagery of the ghetto is brough to life, with heartrending scenes of the Jews being herded into and out of the ghetto and of Nazi brutality. REcreated scenes, will stay with the viewer, like a young woman being shot in the head for asking the Nazi guard where the Nazis are taking them, a mother holding a small boy who is dying of thirst, and begging for water for her child.
A little girl, holding an empty bird cage, and crying because she cannot find her family.
Roman Polanski has showed his flare for directing once again, and brilliant acting by Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman, Emilia Fox as his gentile female friend Dorota, and Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
A story of one man's quest for survival, among the cruel genocide of millions.

Best film of the decade
Review date: 2008-05-07 Rating: 10 out of 10

I watched this 3 or 4 years back, but just noticed some poor reviews so had to up the average with my own. Just a superb, moving, lovely, terifying, human, appaling, tragic and downright entertaining movie.
Yes, if mixed emotions and exhaustion turn you on get it, watch it and keep watching it forever. Polanski's finest moment without a doubt.

Don't believe the hype
Review date: 2008-03-12 Rating: 4 out of 10

And watch the average rating fall!! This is the first review i've ever done, I felt inspired, becuase although this isn't an appaling movie, it certainly isn't amazing...Shindler's list was amazing, and this is nowhere near that calibre, in my opinion. Sorry this reviews gonna be a bit of a spoiler in terms of plot if you haven't seen it but I want to say catagorically why I didn't like it to prove I have a point. Adrian Brody is alright as Wladyslaw Szpilman the jewish pianist, but nothing too compelling, at first, when flirting with his beautiful (married) singer friend, he even comes across as belligerent. In some ways I found it hard to empathise with the characters, not becuase I don't acknowledge the hideous plight of those times, or because I am anti-semitic or anything, but becuase alot of the dialogue and relationships between them seemed vacuous and unreal. There seemed to be little empathetic linking between the characters, I could not picture Brody's family as a family, there were some terrible lines that exaggerated this for me:

Szpilman: That's not funny
Hienrich (his brother): Well you know what's funny. You're funny...with you're ridiculous tie..
Szpilman: Wh..What are you talking about my tie for?! what does my tie have to do with anything?...I need it for my work
Hienrich: Yes, you're work, playing for the parisites in the Ghetto..

WTF? has the dude never seen a tie before?? Plenty of contrived links like this make the dialogue sound flimsy. Hienrich's character is particularly insufferable, his righteous indignation angle being played far too strongly...He provides for the whole family for God's sake!It just wouldn't happen. Many of the characters seem poorly and caricaturely interpreted. There is little action in the play, most of the second half involved Brody hiding from place to place looking bedraggled, this is less heart-rendering as in say "Castaway" than it is dull..also, he never really plays piano that much, there's a few times he mimes playing it in his deprivation, but I wanted more of this, to show his last link with his past life and sanity. Thomas Kretschmann who plays the German soldier who sympathises with Brody's character is pictured on the front of the DVD but only come in in the last fifteen minutes. There is no build up of relationship between the characters, again it is hard to believe, all we have seen from the German soldiers is horrific violence from the start, to have a character so quickly contrast this image, yes it could happen, but for the purposes of film it doesn't work, you need something to mark the transition. I know I should be balanced and say some good points, but I really don't have much to say...this genre is a hard one to tackle, will be hashed and rehashed, and this film simply didn't do it justice, it did portray alot of terrible violence but that's probably more catharthic for today's audiences than shocking. All in all not terrible but poorly realised.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Emilia Fox
Frank Finlay
Thomas Kretschmann
Adrien Brody
Maureen Lipman

Creators:
Adrien Brody (Primary Contributor)
Thomas Kretschmann (Primary Contributor)
Alain Sarde (Producer)
Daniel Champagnon (Producer)
Gene Gutowski (Producer)
Henning Molfenter (Producer)
Lew Rywin (Producer)
Ronald Harwood (Writer)
Wladyslaw Szpilman (Writer)

Director(s):

Recording label: Universal Pictures UK
Manufacturer: Universal Pictures UK
EAN: 5050582197044
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2004-01-05
Number of discs: 1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 143 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2003-01-03
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: German (Original Language)
Language: Russian (Original Language)

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