| THE PIANIST |
| Starring Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Emilia Fox, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman Directed by Roman Polanski ***� out of **** With Roman Polanksi�s (Rosemary�s Baby, Chinatown) latest film released in South Africa now that the Oscars have come and gone, people will flock enthusiastically to see the film that won � quite surprisingly - the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Director. People will leave the cinema shaken, stirred, haunted, and better. The Pianist is a brutal film, but then again, that is the story it tells: one man�s battle for survival as the Germans take over Warsaw in World War II. Polanski shows us everything unflinching: Jews shot through the head as they lie on the ground, random killings of Jews during inspections, children lying dead on crowded streets. The film is brave and of personal relevance to its director, who lost his mother in a German gas-oven. Polanski knew the atrocities of the Holocaust first hand, and when the memoirs of WWII survivor Wladyslaw Szpilman came along, he realized that this was the story to tell. The film opens as Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a master pianist, performs on the radio. A bombing drives him from the station, and we meet up with his family. Slowly but surely, restrictions on Jewish inhabitants tighten and before long, families are stuck into cramped rooms in ghettos with a barbed wall to keep them inside. Things get even worse as Jews are transported by train to concentration camps. The film then starts to center almost completely on Szpilman and his fight to stay alive. The Pianist has no death camp scenes. Instead of piles of corpses in the camps, Polanski shows us piles of corpses on the streets of Warsaw, which was every bit as dangerous as the concentration camps to a Jew. Polanski shows us people stepping over the corpse of a dead man, but it is not the focus of his shot. He is clever enough to keep it secondary, as if it�s merely part of the deal, as it was to the Jews who lived it. By limiting his characters to one central force, Szpilman, the film ensures an absorbing experience. We live everything through the pianist, and see what he sees (actually looking through windows as if we�re in hiding with him). We don�t know anything if Szpilman doesn�t know it. As the war rages on, Szpilman goes from sophisticated artist to primitive. His needs have gone from radio play to breadcrumbs. As Szpilman, Brody�s portrayal deserves all the credit it�s received thus far. He acts from within, bringing his character to vivid life as Polanski brings the war alive around him. The actor and director are a formidable team. The Pianist�s narrative is held together by Szpilman�s journey, and throughout it Polanski showers us with powerful imagery: Wladyslaw crossing a wall to discover absolute destruction on the other side; playing the piano without touching the keys; how Germans violently dismiss �weak Jews� such as cripples. The film packs a strong punch, and the sensitive of heart are advised to heed this quiet warning. All in all, it would be unfair to compare The Pianist and Schindler�s List. Younger people appear to prefer the previous, while older critics go with Spielberg. This is irrelevant; the fact is that Polanski is a master of his craft as much as Spielberg is, but differs in his method. A friend likes to diss Spielberg by saying that everything the director touches turns to plastic, a statement I disagree with. But in this light it�s worthy to mention that Polanksi�s film has no sentimentalism; his style is detached and almost distant. Ironically, that is what really brings a quiet authority to the film. COPYRIGHT CW BROODRYK 2003 |
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