Reviewed by: Kris

Directed by: Roman Polanski

Produced by: Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, & Alain Sarde

Cast: Adrien Brody, & Frank Finlay

A brilliant pianist, a Polish Jew, witnesses the restrictions Nazis place on Jews in the Polish capital, from restricted access to the building of the Warsaw ghetto. As his family is to be shipped off to the Nazi labor camps, he escapes deportation and eludes capture by living in the ruins of Warsaw.

If I had to describe this film in two words they would be amazing and shocking. When I first saw this film, I wound up staring at the screen with my mouth wide open numerous times. There are so many awful things shown in this movie, but they are truthful to what happened in Poland in World War II. People are just picked out of a line and are shot in the head. Nazis raid the Jewish homes. The Jews are separated from everyone else, first by being made to wear patches on their arms, walk in the gutter, by being forced to move to the ghetto, and finally by being sent to concentration camps.

I have not seen Schindler’s List, but I have been told that this is better or just as good as Schindler’s List. This is the best World War II film I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot. This film is much gorier than the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan, but the gore in this film is of a different sort. This isn’t the gore of war; this is the gore of persecution. This gore doesn’t show soldiers killing other soldiers; it shows cruel soldiers killing innocent civilians. However, the gore shown in The Pianist is quite necessary. It allows people, who may know nothing of the persecution of the Jews in WWII, to see what it was like for them. This is why I like this movie. I think it should have won an Academy Award for Best Picture. It is a truly amazing film.