Rating: 
Summary: An Extraordinary and True Story--
Review: THE PIANIST is one of the best films that I've seen in a long time. The music, acting, cinematography and the superb direction of Roman Pulanski have all combined to make an extraordinary film. It's the true story of a Jewish pianist and takes place in Poland during World War II. Adrien Brody's performance in the part of Wladyslaw Szpilman was sensitive and believable. The story begins with Szpilman playing the piano on live radio as the Germans are bombing Warsaw. Wladyslaw is so into his music that he continues to play even after the station's radio manager signals for him to stop. Thus begins the story of Hilter's war on Poland and the Jews living there. The portrayal of the home life of the Szpilman family was intriguing. It gave me a good idea of what it was like for them to live day to day under the increasing threat of Nazi violence towards the Jewish community. All of the Jewish families are made to wear arm bands and sent to live in one area that became known as the Warsaw Ghetto. Some Jews have permits to work outside the Ghetto. Wladyslaw is a radio star and has some influence. He obtains work permits for his family, hoping that would save them all, but it's too late. Before his family can even use the permits, the Nazis begin to evacuate them from the Ghetto and load them into cattle cars to be sent to concentration camps. Wladyslaw is standing with his family and just before they are loaded up, he's pulled off by a friend who's a Jewish policeman. He escapes from the Nazis, and spends the war years hiding in various buildings. He survived with the help of Christian friends and by his sheer tenacity. Since Wladyslaw Szpilman wrote his memoirs shortly after the war, his account is considered to be very accurate of what took place during those terrible years. I've visited Warsaw three times, and felt that THE PIANIST gave me the real feeling of that city. I've seen many photographs of the ruins of Warsaw, and this film gave a clear idea of what was left after the bombing. The Old Town has been rebuilt and its a monument to the dedication and hard work of the people of Poland
Rating: 
Summary: I can't believe they don't play the entire ballade!
Review: This is about Adrien Brody looking for food for three hours. Then, at the climax of the movie, he plays the fantastic G minor ballade and Polanski has the absolute nerve to make CUTS in the piece. One cut, actually. A really obvious, ugly, unnecessary cut. It ruins the entire moment if you're at all a fan of the piece. It's a THREE HOUR MOVIE and they can't play an entire nine-minute Chopin piece? It's one of the most beautiful pieces ever written. Were they afraid people would get impatient? Get up and walk out of the theater? Why cut the piece? To save five minutes? It's a FOUR HOUR MOVIE, for crissakes. And really, I was sort of getting into it (the movie) despite the constant searching for food ("Is there any food in here? ... no ... what about here? ... no ... oh wait, I forgot to look over here! ... no ... ok let me just check one more spot over here ... no ...") and when the octaves started one of my very favorite pieces, I was all excited. And then they had the nerve to cut half of the piece out! Out of a movie that's nearly five hours long! So senseless. I realize it doesn't make sense to let something like this ruin a movie for you but it got me so mad!
Rating: 
Summary: FANTASTIC (the first time)
Review: This is kinda like Schindler's List. The movie is incredibly powerful and flawless the first time you see it and then you see it again, you know what happens, and it loses so much. Rent it and you'll see what I mean. I loved this film, but I could never look forward to seeing it again like I do with the movies I buy.
Rating: 
Summary: ALEXS CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS
Review: Highlights: Adrien Brody's powerfully restrained performance; the horror of war well-displayed; engrossing plot.
Lowpoints: Congrats, this is the 1,000,000th war film Hollywood exuded. Conclusion: Roman Polanski has a confident but unoriginal grip over the film - the story of a Jew escaping Nazis is invigorating, there are quite a few dramatic scenes, and the impact is strong, but...not long-lasting. It's EASY to make people cry if you show an old man being thrown out a window from his wheel-chair. Mass murder will always evoke tears, and when it's incorporated through a poignant story about WWII brought to life by a classic director, the film is an immediate Oscar candidate. I expected more subtlety from Polanski - luckily, Adrien Brody's silent, touching performance saves the film - it is still a part of the WWII infestation ('Schindler's List', 'Stalingrad', 'The Grey Zone', 'Jacob's Liar', 'The War Zone', 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Windtalkers', 'Pearl Harbor', 'The Thin Red line'...should I go on?)
Rating:
Summary: The best holocaust film I have ever seen...
Review: Yes, Adrian's acting was a bit dry in this film, but maybe that was Wladyslaw Szpilman for you. The movie is about him, and if his demeanor was that way so be it; but no one can deny that the ordeal and pain this man endured for approximately 5 years of his life is not intriguing and worthy of a film. This person managed to survive the impossible, lost his family, his home, was in the warsaw ghetto (very low survival rate) and managed to escape, his profession and ultimate love (that of the piano) was stripped away from him, and even without these things to keep him going, he SURVIVED? This movie was amazing, and the fact that it was a true story is absolutely incredible.
This film also brings to light the struggles of non-jewish Poles in Nazi occupied territories. The resistance of the warsaw ghetto and the poles, the Russian army. It's an excellent movie for history buffs. I own the DVD and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical films.
Rating:
Summary: Oddly Compelling, But Runs a Bit Long
Review: Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect when I rented this film. I heard the reviews and Oscar nominations, but I had no idea what I was going to experience when I popped this into my DVD player. What makes the film so oddly compelling is Adrien Brody's silent performance. There are long sections of the film that smoulder on the screen with an eerily noisy silence. Combined with the constant uncertainty of what will happen next, the film places the viewer unnervinngly on edge...for two and a half hours! While it was undoubtedly the director's intent to convey the sense of imminent danger to the audience, much of the film involves Adrien Brody crawlingly silently through the rubble of ruined buildings. I can't help but to wonder if the film could have been shortened considerably with some careful editing of some of these long pauses, which ultimately do not provide much in the way of exposition or character development. Also interesting to me as a music lover was the subtext of music transcending race and nationality, even between a Nazi and a Jew. A commendable piece of filmmaking, although ultimately not quite as powerful as Schindler's List.
Rating:
Summary: ADRIEN BRODY INTERVIEW
Review: Q: What was the specific appeal here?
In this case I wanted to feel that I was being honest with myself. Sometimes I see something that I've done that I didn't necessarily feel that I'd nailed it. But what's important is that I move me, the journey would be less interesting for me if I didn't. I felt that I had a real responsibility in this case more than with most roles because I was playing an actual historical figure, and of course because of the personal historical nature of the film for Roman Polanski, the director. Q: He has a reputation for being quite a hard taskmaster, did he live up to it here?
He did give us a rough ride, but I don't think it was unfair. I think he expects a lot from everyone, and I expect a lot from myself too so I identified with that. I can also understand how he would have expected a lot from me in particular in this film because this is the most personal film he's made. It was a huge honour for me, and I felt a great deal of pressure but at the same time he treated me with a great respect and regard to my work. Q: How much research did you do for the role?
Quite a bit. Roman was very helpful in that his office lent me a lot of documentary footage and I had some literature that I had read. And Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoirs were very helpful as it was first hand information. But at the same time I was given a lot of leeway with the physicality of the character, because although he was known he was no so known that people remember how he looked and behaved. Q: Was playing the piano a crucial component to the character for you, too?
It helped my connection with the character, which I wouldn't have known prior to doing the work. As opposed to acting as if I was playing the piano, I started to not only know the notes but control the levels of emotion and the subtlety within the music which gave me a greater understanding of the story within the music. Q: Did you ever feel that your own discomfort was as nothing compared to what the characters in the story went through?
It was minuscule compared to the level of real suffering that exists in this world currently, and has obviously existed in the past. I felt that I owed that much, at least, to go there. It was awful really, there's an emptiness and a longing that you experience when you're really starving that I hadn't experienced until now. I couldn't have acted that without knowing that pain. As an actor you can call upon similar emotions and try and conjure up these past feelings and torment yourself into re-experiencing them in a sense. I wanted to know the desperation that comes with hunger, and also it was very important to Roman that there was a very clear difference in my physical appearance. I lost 30 pounds in six weeks. Q: Was the diet closely supervised?
Well they supplied me with someone who was supposedly knowledgeable in the field but part of it was telling me not to drink too much water which I agreed to, but I'm sure that's not too healthy. It looked good. It felt terrible, but it looked good. And in doing that it became very real. I had no energy for anything else but that, for piano lessons, dialect lessons, rehearsal and thinking about food. Q: Were you never concerned about putting your own health at risk?
I have mixed feelings about risking my health, because I hadn't really done that before. I didn't realise at the time what a great story it was that I had lost 30 pounds for the role, at the time I was just doing it out of necessity. I didn't see far ahead, I tried to take each day and do all I could for that day and then go to sleep and wake up the next day and see what I could do. Aside form anything else it's made me see things clearer, and also made me very aware of how much pain and suffering exists for so many people. Q: How easy was it to put the weight back on when you needed to?
It was strange because it totally screwed up my eating habits. I was so consumed with thoughts of food for so long that I had this insatiable appetite. I had to slowly start eating a bit because it was supposed to be very unhealthy to eat a lot, but within the first week I had to do a scene where I had to devour all this sausage, and he kept shooting the scene because he wanted something different. With each take I had to eat a tremendous amount of this sausage, and I was literally sick because my body couldn't metabolise it. Q: Wasn't that a little worrying? It concerned me at first because it changed the way I metabolised food and my body reacted differently for a while. I looked different, in my face and appearance, I gained the weight differently and I thought I'd completely screwed up my system because it reset me into a kind of storage mode. Q: After all these serious roles are you looking to lighten up with something in the future?
Yeah, I need a break, I need a little lighter journey. I'd like some romance at some point, if it was well written. That would be great. It's a different process, but it's somehow less fulfilling. I don't like to suffer but somehow I find some kind of greater connection to the work when I do.
Rating:
Summary: Well Worth A Watch
Review: This movie came highly recommended to me and I must say that I was not disappointed in it. I recommend this movie for a number of reasons. First the story is very intriguing. The presentation Jewish life in Warsaw was quite heart wrenching, this was quite a good angle for featuring a story, very unique. I thoroughly enjoyed the realistic aspect of this movie (beyond that it was based on a true story) that was incorporated by the director, Roman Polanski's, personal experience in WWII. Secondly, the scenery and cinematography is well done and makes up for the relatively slow pace of this narrative. On one hand I must agree with the other nay-sayer reviews in saying that this movie lacked so much in character development and dialogue. This movie left too much hanging for my liking. Things such as: what happened to his family, friends etc. I'm sure that given the high death toll these things were meant to be obvious, but the main character gives no indication as to his emotions or feelings on the matter. But on the other hand, given the circumstances of life at this time the story could not have been told any other way. The DVD comes with a number of features, such as a documentary, that are also worth watching, I found that listening to Roman Polanski's personal experience in the Ghetto was fascinating. It amazed me the amount of work and detail that went into this film. This movie is well worth a watch for those who are interested in the human cost of war or those who enjoy epics of this time period.
Rating:
Summary: WAYYY Overrated
Review: I normally would give this movie 2 or 3 stars, but I had to counter all the ridiculous 5 star hyperbole of too many of these reviews.
This movie is terribly gorgeous...and that is all.
The characters are not fleshed out.
The dialogue explains nothing and is virtually non-existent.
It is also very, very, very SLOOOOWWWWW.
All is sacrificed for the sake of beautiful cinematics.
Well, gee, I could've gotten that by watching a documentary on the History Channel or Discovery, you know?
Rating:
Summary: the transformation of the holocaust given new breath
Review: having grown up in the shadow of the second world war; holocaust, anti-semetism, palestine, the 'bomb' and it attendants--shelters, drills,civil defense, and stories of the glories of great war--this film measures up to the idea of its totalist destruction as we watch Poland be occupied, the ghetto established, then destroyed, and its it aftermath, warsaw and poland left in ruins unknown to us only now by a vivid comparison of our visual images of September 11. The reality of the set, and the recent events of september 11, still somehow an illigitimate descendant of the great world war--plagued me so vividly the fist time i watched the film, that i was not able to fully appreciate the performance of its lead actor, Adrian Brody, and watch in detail, as the transformation of a human being into less than unfolds before our eyes as a result of hatred at its zenith.
Again, i watched the film, and again, it seemed so much the same painful recognitions of what we now know about Holocuast, that i was unable to add any further revelations about its shape until i began watching the third, fourth ,and fifth time. slowly , but surely, what i began to see emerge, was exactly how it must have felt to those held captive, enslaved, tortured and killed over the rising political period in Germany, from well before the war, and until first ending when the Allies began the liberation of Europe. I would like to say that it matters how much one knows about the Holocaust, but it doesn't--it is essential in its complete succintness--it tells the tale. That it takes only one chapter of the war, that of the occupation of Poland, the Ghetto and the Uprising, the story of the Pianist itself, and his family; then the everyperson caught in the spiderweb of nazism, is a complete tale. At first, i felt the Pianist to be a arrogant man, one whom could not see the dangers of the world, whom deliberately ignored the world around him; only later on, did i come to understand, that in a world of such hostility, such a skin can make the world bearable, even liveable, even palpable to career, marriage, family, and community. This was whom the Pianist was, as he began his walk to the ghetto with his family that day, on October 31, 1941. It is painful to watch him become more and more disintegrated--i want the arrogant, playful, talented Pianist to return--i want him to stop this, and stand up again. As i watch him become smaller and more invisible, i begin to realize that the Pianist has learned, how to go into hiding with himself; thus , his seemingly amazing ability to hide from the Germans while in their midst. this is the lesson he learned in order to survive. the can of food, becomes food--not its diminished form--the same as the last shared meal the family has together while awaiting their yet unknown fate.
we hear plenty of what it was to survive in the camps; those too, are stories worthwhile, and eternal--we know what it was for anne frank and her family to survive, but we know little about the many others that hid during the war, both Jewish and Christian alike--it is not the mainstream topic of the Holocaust. the dreams i had as a child, about how it might be easy to survive in the post apolyptic world, was shaken, as i watched this; it is not as my dreams could see it--it was far more that we can even imagine--and that is the very sensibility that Polanksi injects into this movie throught his characters. Each one has their own statement about the survival of this particular end of the world--and it was indeed, the end. And by the end, i began to also comprehend that one singular trait mentioned over and over, in survival stories--that survival depends upon the patience of hope to once again be, combined with the strange twisted chances of surviving. there are no apologies for survival--there is, the feeling of celebration, more than once, in this movie, of striving to keep alive. For its genre, it deserves its acclaim--it very patiently seduces the viewer into this world, and unfolds its secrets with delicacy, and efficacy of details and minutes and hours of the times. the scene describing how the star of david patch is to be constructed and worn, is one such fine example, among many in the film of watching an intimacy of survival in horror is given to us. I would not have felt comfortable going to the theater for this movie--and while i missed seeing the sets and hearing the theater sound system--this was a movie best viewed at home, when i could take breaks, from feelings of despair, anger, and hopelessness that set in while viewing it. The very ability to extract such powerful emotions from within myself, intuited that very sensibility and and wonderful portrayal of this man's life during these years we are given privy to. This is a keeper, on the shelf, along with others, on the subject. I am hoping that there will be a study guide for this move, soon in print.
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