Rating: 
Summary: Boring protagonist
Review: This film's story is potentially moving, but rendered rather boring by Adrien Brody's uncaring and mushy performance of its protagonist. As the plot dragged on, I kept asking why I should care about the sufferings and torments of this man who didn't seem to care himself what happened to him. No matter what happens, Brody's reaction is always a bland, disinterested smirk that becomes more and more irritating. Too bad: the story deserved a better presentation.
Rating: 
Summary: The "Titanic" of 2002 - Overrated & Undeserving of Oscars
Review: Let me get this out of the way, first and foremost, and say that I don't believe "The Pianist" is a BAD movie, per se. If I said that "The Pianist" was BAD, I'm sure I would be labeled a Nazi sympathizer and be sent to a leper colony somewhere in Luxembourg. Now, let me get another thing out of the way and say that "The Pianist" isn't really a very good movie, either. Yes, Adrien Brody delivers a good performance in the film, and the cinematography adequately captures the violent environment that was Poland in the early 1940's. Now, let's talk about some things that "The Pianist" DOESN'T do, such as presenting anything new or relevant to the pursuit of portraying the Holocaust in film. I'm not sure why more people didn't see this, but "The Pianist" follows the typical NBC movie-of-the-week Holocaust format almost to a T: happy Jewish family enjoys life, happy Jewish family hears about the war, happy Jewish family begins to suffer discrimination, happy Jewish family gets pushed out, happy Jewish family gets sent to camp, one gets left behind, rest of movie follows him. I think I might have seen something like this on "Lifetime" a couple of weeks ago. Now, is it a CRIME that Roman Polanski chose to be so completely ordinary in his rendering of the Holocaust (even though he went through it himself and could have really brought some needed emotional depth to the film, one thing it lacks badly)? Not really. His film isn't hurting anyone by being the complete antithesis of something fresh and important such as "Schindler's List." What happens to "The Pianist" in its prodding, typical narrative, is that it becomes simply an "Okay" movie, something that a person as talented as Polanski shouldn't create. The Holocaust DID happen and has been etched in time, but movies have done a fantastic job of rendering historical events in a fashion that brings new light to them. "Schindler's List" was so groundbreaking because it was spare, raw, and mainly from a Nazi's perspective. "The Pianist" may be well-made, but that doesn't mean it's great by any means. It's a book of Holocaust cliches poured into a grossly overlong film. There is a touchy ground that is broached when it comes to critiquing a film about such an important time in world history - one that demeans a Holocaust film looks unpatriotic, or unsympathetic. I'm simply rating a film here, and Holocaust-or-not, "The Pianist" is hopelessly ordinary and didn't deserve any of the three Academy Awards it received.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: This movie is beautifully done. I don't have a single criticism. Well casted, well written, just a true ringer. The movie pulls you in from the beginning and never lets you go. The life this man has to endure is painful to witness but entertaining nonetheless. The obstacles this man encounters and the chronic fear and frustration he endures are felt by the viewer. The movie is a glimpse into history, thought provoking, and the PERFECT pick for a rainy day on the couch with a big warm blanket. It will make even your friends with short attention spans remain fixed to the set.
Rating:
Summary: Polanski 's Homecoming!
Review: I love the cinema of Roman Polanksi,ever since I watched a lonely, paranoid and frustrated Catherine Deneuve's descent into madness in his masterpiece Repulsion. In fact Polanski's films were one of the first I ever watched and thanks to them that I came to appreciate cinema as much more than mere entertainment, but an art form of the most sophisticated kind.
He is truly one of the last directors/auteurs in cinema today,whose life,background and personal vision often collide with his fiction,to give us a unique blend and classic films.
The Pianist is certainly his best film since since Chinatown,an EXTREMELY well directed movie,and of course it is his most personal.
Interestingly enough,Polanksi has never approached on celluloid the subject of his identity/background as a Pole/East European on one hand, and his Jewish heritage and the suffering he experienced from the Nazis as a result on the other,(both his parents were sent to concentration camps, only his father survived the ordeal)..Until now that is.
Adapting Wladyslaw Szpilman's own book about his experiences,hardships he faced and survival in the polish ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland,it is also true of Polanski's own experiences..He too had to flee the Nazis and learned how to survive. Although the film touches greatly on the suffering of the Polish Jews under the Nazis,(with harrowing images of cold brutality),it is a more personal story about survival,seen exclusively through the eyes of the gifted pianist(and indirectly Polanski's too).All the events that unfold during and up to the end of the war revolves around his perception and condition.
The process of one man's survival against impossible odds that never diminished his love of music,the hunger that never clashed with his sense of humanity..This is really what the Pianist is about, and this is what makes it a fine film.
There are many haunting images and unforgettable scenes in the Pianist, but the one I most vividly remember is when Szpilman plays a beautiful Chopin ballad for the first time in years for the German officer,hesitant and confused at first but then totally immersed in the music as if transported into another universe, an energy suddenly bursting that does not fail to impress the officer who saves his life.
This was an extremely powerful scene!
Throughout his career Polanski has chosen his actors well, so naturally it was an inspired choice to cast the wonderful Adrien Brody for the lead role,earning him a well deserved Oscar.
Polanksi in the Pianist has for the first time faced his own past and background, and in a way also exorcised his own demons as much as Wladyslaw Szpilman did in his book,two men who have suffered greatly,two artists who share a common love for their craft: one never leaving Warsaw, the other returning years after to tell the story of the Pianist, and his own too..
Rating:
Summary: Justified acclaim.
Review: There are moments in this film that I have never seen before, and many other scenes reminiscent of "Schindler's List." The major difference between this and Spielberg's gem is that "Schindler's List" is more objective, and "The Pianist" is subjective. In this film a rapport develops with Szpilman and you see the horror through his tired eyes. The direction is astounding, and I pity anyone who did not see this on the big screen. There are many shocking scenes, most of which happen so fast that they are indigestible before the next horrifiying sequence. This may leave some people feeling cold, but the technical filmaking in this movie is superb. Roman Polanski richly deserved the Oscar for Best Director. This is a moving film with many unnerving scenes that linger long after the lights have come up.
Rating: 
Summary: Where was God in the Warsaw ghetto?
Review: Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" is a hard film for me to review, because it was a hard film to watch. I am an admirer of Polanski, and have watched everthing he's made---right down to "The Fearless Vampire Killers"---scores of times. I approached "The Pianist" with a combination of intrigue and ambivalence: on the one hand, doubtless I would get a hearty serving of Holocaust horror and grue, which I wasn't looking forward to. On the other hand, Polanski is a master filmmaker at the height of his craft, and if he had a story to tell about the Nazi occupation of Poland, I wanted to hear it. I wasn't expecting this. "The Pianist" is not a normal film; it is certainly not a normal "Holocaust film", if there is even such a thing. And contrary to the way the film was marketed, it is not a story of hope, of redemption amidst the ruins, of a ray of light in humanity's darkness. Not at all. This is a story of stupid, brute, hard-scrabble survival. The fact that it is set in 1939 Warsaw is almost incidental, in that the character of Wladyslaw Szpilman (played masterfully by Adrien Brody) could as easily have been stranded on a desert island, crashed in the snowy heights of the Andes, or buried in the bowels of some Stygian cave. So viewer beware: this is not a hopeful tale, this is a brutal, harrowing, horrifying first-person journey told entirely from the viewpoint of its eponymous protagonist. And from the moment we encounter the pianist playing Chopin for the Polish state radio, until the closing credits, the camera literally never leaves his side. With that in mind, "The Pianist" is the story of a young Jewish man's struggle to survive as the Nazi darkness falls across Poland. The story is set, and takes place entirely, in Warsaw, begins with the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 (with a shell literally crashing into the Pianist's formerly serene world), and culminates in the "liberation" of the city by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. The sequences are terse, starkly filmed, often brutal, and mercilessly chronological: Szpilman's family, along with the other Jewish citizens of Warsaw, is quickly humiliated and segregated. One by one come the cold Nazi dictums: no Jews in the parks, no Jews in cafes, no Jews sitting on public benches, all Jews must wear self-made Stars of David on the right arm of their clothing. Ultimately Szpilman's family is moved to the Warsaw ghetto, and things quickly go downhill from there. When the credits rolled, I was stunned, I was utterly in shock. I recall the initial line of "Moby Dick" from Melville: "And I alone escaped to tell thee." That, for me, is "The Pianist." Szpilman is nothing more than a brute survivor, his humanity is reduced by degrees, as before our horrified eyes he begins to die a death of a thousand cuts. And that, I think, explains why this movie was so maddening for me, and at times so repulsive. It's hard to identify with Szpilman, this man who trades everything for survival, for the ability to once again play Chopin on his beloved ivories (and boy does he get his chance!). Adrien Brody here is truly masterful: I completely forgot that I was watching an actor on a screen play a role, and became completely absorbed in the character. It is an amazing role, but also a creepily unattractive one: Szpilman is no hero. The heroes in this movie get shot, burned, executed with no quarter and no mourners. Indeed, I became increasingly frustrated with this strangest of protagonists, who is both massively lucky and massively foolish; those familiar with the sequences where Szpilman fumbles with dishware and ambles out to Russian rescuers will understand what I'm talking about here. Szpilman, meanwhile, survives---but there is a catch to his survival, and in it I think Polanski provides an antidote to an otherwise mesmerizing but nihilistic film that seems to whisper about the silence of God in a blindly uncaring, insane universe. And even more remarkably, despite my initial loathing for the character---my God, man, grab a rifle and get revenge!---I began to care very deeply for him. Polanski makes a bold decision in attaching the camera solely to Szpilman, and it is a gambit that pays off handsomely. Szpilman becomes our eyes on this brutal, searingly horrific world; his ears are our ears, and we flinch when he fumbles with a cabinet and brings a cupboard full of china crashing down on the floor of his hiding place. Polanski has worked seamlessly with Director of Photography Pawel Edelman to create a totally authentic nightmare world which becomes unbearably horrible---and then, without flinching, spirals down into even more unimaginable horror. The acting here is all first-rate. Particularly surprising is the excellent work by Thomas Kretschmann (an elegant German actor with fine poise who appeared, amazingly, as the Vampire overlord Damaskinos in Blade II), who portrays a German officer who---no, I'll let you see for yourself. In a sense, Kretschmann's character serves as the mirror image of the pianist, and puts a fine coda to the film. And while the film features the most haunting piano works of Beethoven and Chopin, composer Wojciech Kilar (who produced the astounding soundtrack to Polanski's "The Ninth Gate") returns with a haunting, moving score that serves the movie well. I am not finished with "The Pianist." It was not an easy film to watch; indeed, it was often repulsive and maddening, and yet I imagine I'll be watching it again. If you find yourself reacting in the same way to the film, if you're tempted to turn it off---resist!---stay with it: you'll be richly rewarded. It is a bold film, a masterful movie, and a film which I contend again is not strictly a Holocaust piece: it is about survival, and centers on the question of how much of himself a man is willing to surrender in order to survive---and after the surrender, what remains of the man? What makes him human? One question continues to trouble me, though: is Szpilman changed after his ordeal? Is he a different man---or is he the same? Did he change, after all?
Rating:
Summary: Very Much Overrated
Review: No doubt this is a good picture, though too long and often boring. Undoubtedly this movie is not material to win the Academy Awards it won. There were far better movies (directors and actors) during 2002. Just for example, there is no comparison between Nicholson's performance in About Schmidt and Brody's in The Pianist: Nicholson should have won the AA hands down!! And, it is amazing that every few years Hollywood has to remind us of the Holocaust and reward the makers of such movies (particularly in this one) with Academy Awards they don't deserve.
Rating: 
Summary: I've had enough of the Holocaust, haven't you?
Review: Roman Polanski, the exiled [physical] offender now hiding in Europe from the U.S. authorities, was given a best director oscar for this largely [imitation] work portraying *Jewish oppression* in Easern Eurpoe during WWII. The Academy Award was merely a political statement by the leftist Hollywood elite who apparently believe that *artists* such as Polanski are way above the law. "The Pianist" steals from "The Holocaust",
"Schindler's List", and a host of other Jewish propaganda movies, ... The main character, a ... piano player, spends most of the movie running from the SS, getting sick, and hiding like a rat, while he loses his parents, brother, and sisters to the concentration camps. Any red-blooded American in that situation would have grabbed a gun and fought to the death to save his family. The Pianist eventually *wins* his freedom courtesy of real men of the Red Army. ...
Rating:
Summary: A relief after "The Hours" and "Chicago"
Review: A true look at evil and good. After seeing the tales of hatred, depression, suicide, murder, and selfishness lauded by so many reviewers of "The Hours" and "Chicago", watch this and be reminded of the truth.
Rating:
Summary: Goodness still exists, even inside the heart of darkness.
Review: The uniqueness of this movie stems from the fact that the leading actor is not leading anything. There is no escape from the feelings the common viewer senses as he watches the film - there is no ordinary protagonist in here. Adrien Brody, as Wladyslaw Szpilman, is actually portraying the character of an everyday person - that in the face of grave danger wants only to stay alive and is not interested in fighting back and probably dying in the process. In many previous films the crowd has come to expect tales of bravery, boldness and selfishness that give rise to sublimity of the spirit and a far-reaching emotions of human bond. This motion picture turns things the other way around; Szpilman is not really the hero. The real heroes are the people who take tremendous risks and help him to survive the incomprehensible and inconceivable ordeal of The Holocaust. Starting with the Jewish Capos, continuing with a few Polish friends and ending with a high rank SS officer; they are all persons that rise up beyond the mere circumstances and imminent danger, reach out and help a friend - or a total stranger. The importance of this film is the return to the notion that even among the most ferocious wickedness - goodness still exists - even if in small quantities. ============================================================= Make no mistakes, the point of view the movie presents makes it inactive and sometimes a little bit boring. This is no "Schindler's List". Passivity is the main theme here. Hard images are frequent and the movie is not suitable for children under 15.
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