The Pianist(2002)
Director Roman Polanski
Genre Biography/Drama/War
Language German/English
Runtime 2 hr 30 mins
IMDB Rating 8.5 ( 1,32,408 votes , Top 250 : 53)
Personal Rating 9/10
Academy Awards Best Actor in a leading role ( Adrein Brody)
Best Director ( Roman Polanski)
Best Writer, Adapted screenplay ( Ronald Harwood)
Major Actors  |
Historical Relevance September 1939 saw Germany occupy Poland in a blitzkrieg that lasted three weeks. The first decree intended to denigrate the Jewish people was introduced in November,1939 wherein Jewish people had to wear a star of David on their sleeve. Several impediments were imposed on Jewish people that reduced them to a state of slaves and chattel. They were not allowed to work in key government institutions, to make bread, to earn more than 500 zloty a month, to travel via bus or train, to possess gold or jewellery. Moreover, they were humiliated or severely beaten by German soldiers in public for little or no reason.
In October, 1940 1.13 lac Poles were evacuated from the centre of the city to make way for 4 lac Jews. This Warsaw ‘ghetto’ so formed contained 30% of the population in 2.4% of the city area. This area was enclosed by formidable wall and any Jew leaving this enclosed area was shot.
The life at Ghetto quickly got inhumane as the amount of food rationed to Jews at the Ghetto was a mere 10% of what Germans got .Richer people smuggled goods into the Ghetto whilst poorer people sent their children into the ‘Aryan side’ to steel food. Soon, more and more number of Jews flooded this ghetto and money quickly dried up, leading to a high mortality rate of six thousand people per month whose corpses were dumped naked in the street everyday.
Hitler wished to speed up extermination of Jews, for which he sent 3 lac Jews to the Treblinka Extermination camp between July and September, 1942. When the Germans prepared to extradite the remaining sixty thousand Jews to the camp, the “Warsaw ghetto Uprising” began.
Review Director Roman Polanski manages to paint an incomparable portrait of human condition and innumerable sufferings, hope within the tyrannous apathetic rule of the Germans in an elegant manner. This is one of the most brutal and unforgiving film dealing with a holocaust of the Warsaw ghetto. Numerous incidents depicting cruel tortures inflicted upon Jews by the Nazis have been depicted in this movie, none cruel than the one where a crippled man is thrown off the balcony and lands on his head as others watch and wait for their fate. In another incident, German people crossing the street are forced to dance with one another while Nazi soldiers feel entertained are amused by their sufferings to stay alive.
Underneath this horrid portrait, lies a true story of hope characterized by Wladyslaw, the best pianist in Poland, who despite odds, manages to keep Nazis at bay by constantly changing his locations through help received by his friends. Adrien Brody received a well deserved Oscar for the same, learnt to lay the Piano and lost thirty pounds just to synchronize himself with the character, apart from imparting his brilliant acting skills to the movie.
Wladyslaw Szpilman is portrayed as a wealthy Jewish Pianist living in an apartment in Poland with his parents, two sisters and a brother. At the outbreak of the second world war, condition of Jews quickly deteriorated and they were moved to a Jewish ghetto by the Germans. The family, is reduced to subsistence level , although still better than many of their fellow starving Jews in inhumane conditions of the ghetto.
Wladyslaw takes up the job of playing piano at a restaurant in the ghetto. Soon, the day comes when their family is selected to be exterminated at Treblinka extermination camp. Wladyslaw is saved from doom by a Jewish policeman while he sees the rest of his family board the train to Treblinka. He blends with the sixty thousand Jews working as slave laborers. He helps some of the Jews who are planning an uprising by smuggling weapons but escapes when he Is almost caught by a German officer. He finds Dorota, who is now married. For subsequent months, he keeps himself away by living in various hideouts with the help of his friends and Dorota. He finally lands up at ghetto, which has now transformed in desolated wasteland of bricks. He is caught by a Nazi officer(Hosenfeld) at the ghetto, who surprisingly helps him survive at the ghetto. Soon, Russians overpower Germans, and Hosenfeld is one of the German war prisoner.
Closing title cards tell us that Hosenfeld died in a Soviet prison in 1952. Wladyslaw lived to be an old man, dying in Poland at the age of 88.
The movie is an old fashioned movie, not at all glamorous, but definitely an uplifting film that shows how a person can survive in a world gone mad.
Watching Guide Violent and extremely depressing scenes of inhumane cruelty. The movie does not contain graphical scenes of violence.
Memorable Qouotes Yehuda: [regarding the underground newspapers] These will start the uprising. Majorek hides them in his underpants, and leaves them in toilets.
Majorek: As many toilets as I can find. Germans never use Jewish toilets. They're too clean for them.
Wladyslaw Szpilman ( to his sister just before being deported to the extermination camp): I wish I knew you better.
Majorek: As many toilets as I can find. Germans never use Jewish toilets. They're too clean for them.
Wladyslaw Szpilman ( to his sister just before being deported to the extermination camp): I wish I knew you better.
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