Rating: 
Summary: calling the kettle black
Review: While the movie and music CD are worth 5 stars, there is one bit of horror that we cannot forget--and it has nothing to do with the Holocaust. The CD that I bought had a sticker attached to it with the following Roman Polanski quote(Polanski was the one who made "The Pianist" film.) The sticker reads, "THE PIANIST is a testimony to the power of music , the will to live, and the courage to stand against evil." But lest we forget, it was Roman Polanski who in the 1970s made an arrangement to give a 13 year old girl a screen test, and ended up drugging her, then photographing her topless, and then raping her. Convicted, Polanski was released on bail, and promptly fled the country. He has yet to express any remorse for his behavior, and yet he claims the right to call the actions of the Nazis evil and immoral. It seems once again that evil and immorality is always something the other person does. If you think this kind of behavior is acceptable simply because Polanski has made a great movie, would you want a man with such a behavior pattern allowed to walk the streets of your neighborhood?
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: What a relief it was to realize that great movies are still being made! This movie is the best Holocaust movie I've ever seen and it will certainly invite comparisons to "Schindler's List". Both movies are epic in scope and bring the reality of the Holocaust to life in human terms. However, "Schindler's List" was made, I felt, as a tribute to the risks that an ordinary man took and the difference that it made in the lives of many people. It gave us an uplifting message in a sea of depravity. It did it well and it stands on its' own merits. "The Pianist", if I'm interpreting it correctly, is about the survival of one man who witnessed the whole scope of the Nazi Occupation of Warsaw. Through his eyes we see the fall of Warsaw, the implementation of the "Jewish Laws", the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto, the forced exodus of the Jews to the concentration camps, the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, the Warsaw Uprising, and the fall of the German Army to the invading Russian Army. So many aspects of so many things are brought in subtle and in boldly stated scenes. It is amazing how much is said in this 2 1/2 hour movie. For example, there was one brief scene where a Jewish policeman makes a comment to a German soldier while hundreds of Jews are being loaded on the railroad cars for shipment to Treblinka. I couldn't hear what was said and I was going to replay it to see if I could pick it out better. However, I realized that I had already gotten the point; the Jewish cop had sunk so low that he was trading "shop talk" humor with his own oppressor while his people were being led to the slaughterhouse. The acting is superb throughout the movie. The cinematography is outstanding. Everything comes together in such an excellent manner. Roman Polanski certainly deserved his Oscar and I will leave it at that. There is much in this movie that earned its' R rating. However, that is because it boldly attempts to bring us face to face with the horror of the Holocaust. I have seen an endless number of movies that have been R rated for no valid artistic reason except that they are full of unnecessary vulger obscenities and sexual explicity. It's becoming a near impossibility to find a movie that my son and I can watch together. I can watch this movie with my son and explain to him how anger, fear and prejudice can, if left unchecked, lead to the unthinkable becoming reality. A number of people ridiculed the criticism of the uncut showing of "Schindler's List" on TV. How can people object to 4 letter words and ignore the greater obscenity of the murders of so many innocent people, they asked. But by eliminating the unnecessary use of profanity and sexual explicitness, we are able to focus on the real profanity and obscenity of what is happening in front of us. Apparently it takes Roman Polanski to show this to Hollywood. A final note about the movie has to do with its' ending. I discovered some years ago that Holocaust literature, by its' nature, is not given to happy endings. The story of survival is, to many, a happy ending of sorts but most stories of the Holocaust leave a person feeling empty. This is true in "The Pianist" as well. There is an interesting twist that, in any other movie, would lead to a positive statement. We are lead down this path in anticipation of such an ending only to encounter a sudden dead end. In analyzing our disappointment, we get a glimmer of the sense of meaninglessness that the Holocaust brought to its victims. It is a statement consistent with Polanski excellent portrayal of the Holocaust.
Rating: 
Summary: freeze/jump problems on widescreen version
Review: I bought the widescreen DVD of The Pianist at Circuit City and it froze and jumped within chapter 13. I got a replacement copy and it played fine until near the end when the German officer shows up and then it jumped back to chapter 13. I played the DVD's on different players, different brands. Don't know if it is a widespread problem or related to Circuit City's batch. (The movie itself is 5 stars, I'm only reviewing the DVD.)
Rating: 
Summary: gripping though flawed drama
Review: ***1/2 "The Pianist" is a bit like "Schindler's List" as seen from the inside out. The one flaw in that earlier film always seemed to be that, by choosing to make a Gentile - Oskar Schindler - the protagonist in his film, Spielberg turned the Jews themselves almost into background players in their own story. That doesn't happen with "The Pianist" since the hero in this case happens to be himself a Jew - the real life Polish pianist and composer Wladyslaw Szpilman - who managed, through strength, determination and the assistance of a number of brave and caring individuals, to survive the horrors of that darkest and most inexplicable chapter in 20th Century history. This is not to say that "The Pianist" is a better film than "Schindler's List" - far from it. For while this latest work from Roman Polanski is a fascinating tale of survival in its own right, the film lacks the moral and psychological resonance that made Spielberg's work such a universally acclaimed masterpiece. Because Schindler was an outsider looking in, he was forced to make the kind of moral choices that Szpilman never really faces in the situations in which he finds himself. In fact, the one time that the protagonist is confronted with such an option - having to decide whether or not to betray his people by joining the Jewish police whose job it is maintain order in the Warsaw ghetto - Szpilman flat out declines the offer. This may, indeed, be the way circumstances played themselves out in real life, but this elimination of any kind of psychological depth makes "The Pianist" seem frustratingly superficial at times. Although the film isn't as rich and powerful as it might have been, "The Pianist" is still exceptional on a lot of different levels. First of all, Polanski and his screenwriter, Ronald Hardwood, both of whom won Oscars for their work here, capture the brutality and sadism of the Nazi regime with frightening candor and almost "reportorial" objectivity. As in "Schindler's List," people in this film die in very believable, very graphic ways. Particularly interesting are the early sections of the film in which we witness the gradual steps leading up to the eventual deportation and extermination of the Warsaw Jews, beginning with the curtailment of Jewish civil rights, then to the branding of them with stars of David on their clothing, then to their imprisonment in the Warsaw ghetto, and, finally, to the inexorable walk to the gas chamber. "The Pianist" doesn't take us that far on screen, but we sure sense the presence of those death camps in the loss of Szpilman's entire family. "The Pianist" brilliantly recreates this shameful era in recent human history and does so without becoming sentimental and pretentious in the process. Adrian Brody won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance here, and he is very good indeed, especially given the fact that the role calls for him to be more of a reactor to the events around him than a catalyst. Polanski and Hardwood have provided this fine young actor with a veritable tour de force assignment that he executes with a great deal of skill and aplomb. Unfortunately, a number of the other characters - particularly those who go out of their way to help him - remain stubbornly enigmatic throughout. "The Pianist" is an honorable addition to the list of fine films that have attempted to come to grips with the subject of the holocaust. But, for my money, the best still remains "The Shop on Main Street," the Oscar-winning Best Foreign Language film of 1965. This superb Czech film does what "The Pianist" is never quite able to do, which is to find a way to involve us in the momentous moral dilemmas that undoubtedly faced many of the people involved in this life-and-death event. "The Pianist," by making its tale strictly a story of survival and not a study of human psychology, fails to illuminate much of what we really need to know about that time. And about ourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: Yongjoon writes
Review: Nearly a month has passed since I last saw the film but I still cannot erase the piano tunes out of my mind. In one of its most poignant scenes, the main character plays Debussy's 'Claire de Lune' in the middle of the ruins of Warsaw under a blue moonlight. It is a beautiful cinematic moment and for that reason alone I want to highly recommend this film.
The Pianist is a film by Roman Polanski , the revered auteur of Chinatown and Rosemary's baby. He is a film maker who has led a life so fraught with hardship and personal tragedies that his story may as well be made into a movie. When he was still a child living in Poland his mother died in a Nazi concentration camp while he alone was able to escape. Tragedy ensued even as an adult. His actress wife, Sharon Tate was brutally murdered by members of the Manson clan in 1969. In 1978, Polanski was charged with statutory rape over a thirteen-year-old girl, which forced him to flee from the United States. He still faces arrest and imprisonment if he ever sets foot on U.S. soil. With such a colorful past, the fugitive director is equally sympathized and hated by many. While lately the victim girl (who is now a fully grown woman) announced to the public that she forgave him for his past crime, there's still much controversy over him, especially after the Best Director nomination he garnered recently. While people may still be divided in opinion over the director's personal life, there is little dissension over his recent work as being a deeply moving holocaust drama.
The film follows the true life story of Wladyslaw Szpilman , a celebrated Jewish pianist who survived the holocaust by hiding in the ruins for many years. At the onset of the movie, we see him as his sophisticated self. He is a well-established artist, coming from a wealthy family, who is loved and admired by his own community. But after the fall of Poland, his life takes a sudden downturn. As the Nazis begin corralling Jews into the Ghetto, the normalcy of his life begins to disintegrate. Soon he is separated from his family, rescued at the last moment from being sent to his certain death at the concentration camp. For a while he is aided by his Polish Resistance friends who provide him with a hideaway. But the resistance is soon destroyed and he is again forced to survive on his own.
Watching Polanski's film, one cannot help but make comparisons with Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. Both films depict the same subject, but their scope and tone are vastly different. Spielberg's story was anecdotal, with more attention given to the larger picture. Also it was more sentimental, with its sweeping score and climactic developments. In contrast, The Pianist focuses on a more micro-level. Everything that transpires in the movie is seen through the eyes of Szpilman (played hauntingly by Adrien Brody) and therefore the audience is given a deeply personal experience. As for the tone of the film, it is subdued and grim, the plot almost stoically averse to dramatization.
According to the director himself, it was all deliberate. Much of the details in the movie were drawn from his own experience, and as such, he didn't want to embellish. Straying from how it truly happened would be trivializing his own past. The result is a story unhinged from any forced emotions. The film doesn't manipulate the audience into tears. The dry reality of the events themselves is sufficient to evoke the pathos.
Events in our real life have the power to move us in a way no fiction can. Watching Szpilman's humanity being whittled down to its bare essence is moving because we recognize the reality embedded in it. Human nature can be fascinating. When faced with the bleakest of situations, one still finds a way to express one's hope. To Szpilman, that was the piano. Listen to him play the piano on a moonlit backdrop, and you will know instantly what his tale is about.
Rating:
Summary: Better Than Schindler's List
Review: There have been many films over the years dealing with the Holocaust and the atrocities in Europe during the Second World War. The best known of course is, Schindler's List. While Schindler's List will be the film by which all other films about this dark period of history will be judged, it has met its match in The Pianist. While Schindler gave us the viewers the story of one very flawed man who saved many lives in the guise of Jewish Labor, The Pianist is far different. The story of one man who managed to survive Warsaw during the Occupation and was ultimately the reciepant of some kindness from the most unlikely person,a German solider. The difference between the two films is that while Schindler's took a rather aneseptic and 'Hollywood' view of the flawed man Oskar Schindler, The Pianist drew on the real life experiences of its director to make the film much more personal. It not only becomes personal to the director himself, but to the viewer. Polanski himself was a boy during the Occupation, injected small things that he remembered during the Occuapation into the film. Little things like someone telling Spzilman not to run as he is pulled from the lines of people, including his family, being forced into cattle cars on their way to a certain death.It is things like this that bring the viewer closer to the characters and even to the director. Adrien Brody gave the performance of his life in this film. It deserved every Oscar it got and it is a true masterpiece to be treasured.
Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: This was one of the most disappointing movies I have seen in a long time. The events that it portrayed are horrible and tragic, but the movie and its presentation of the events were severely lacking considering the awards it was given and the huge budget that it must have taken to make the movie. There was nothing that has not already been said repeatedly from Hollywood, and the movie spent more time highlighting bloody scenes than any sort of plot line. I realize that it is unpopular to say that anything portraying the Holocaust is not magnificent, but this movie was tragically lacking in anything like substance or quality. In my opinion, if you've seen ANY other Holocaust movie in the last 10 years, save your money and the 2 1/2 hours for a movie that has something new to say and says it with intelligence.
Rating:
Summary: Read This
Review: This movie is about A jew that survives the whole bloody war. In the end some German finds him , feels sorry for him and lets him live. He also goes on on play the Piano after all the $hit he has been through. Sorry if I messed up the ending but what can I say.......
Rating:
Summary: A train ride towards an ironic fate...
Review: Early on in this film, I thought to myself: "Just another holocaust film. So what?" I'd seen and read it all, from the enslavement of the Jews (and their initial inability to cope with the reality of what was happening all around them) to the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto. It bothered me a little that I wasn't seeing anything new. But then again, I reminded myself, this wasn't fantasy-- this was history. However, by the end of the film, I realized that this film does come up with something essential. The key to this movie is the utter helplessness and claustrophobia of its protagonist. Mr. Szpilman struggles to obtain a work card for his elderly father, only to watch his family packed onto the train bound for Treblinka anyway. He's only saved by dumb luck-- a Jewish collaborator grabs him and throws him behind police lines, enabling him to get away. Why? Apparently because of his musical talent; the one thing that seperates him from the rest of the victims, and also something he had no control over. Following his escape, the protagonist moves from refuge to refuge, and barely manages to elude the Gestapo. He gets sick, grows a beard, and eventually degenerates to the point where he's barely recognizable. In the end he wanders hopelessly through the burned remains of the ghetto, where he runs across something rare indeed: a Nazi commander with a heart of gold, who spares him-- once again-- because of his musical talent. Later, this officer is killed by the Russians, in spite of his courageous actions. The moral of this story? None, unless it's that no good deed goes unpunished, and that our actions have no relationship whatsoever to our destinies. But why should this film has a moral? Real life doesn't concern itself with messages; it is what it is. Ultimately this film is a brooding, ironic tale of a man who's forced to watch through one window or another as the world destroys itself. In the end, he survives by pure accident-- and perhaps that in itself is the message both of this film, and of the holocaust.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: As cheesy and cliche as it sounds, this movie made me laugh, cry, and swear at the television when Chicago won Best Picture at the Acadamy Awards instead of this amazing piece of history. Unlike some other dolled up accounts of the Holocaust, this movie was terribly honest, showing brutal deaths, and even more brutal survivals, which this movie is about.
The Pianist tells the story of Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who's at the beginning of a promising piano career and a romance with a Christian woman when he and his family are cruelly forced into the ghettos, seperated by a thick brick wall from the rest of society. He manages to evade being sent to a concentration camp, but faces even worse horrors in the death of his family, his time spent at a ghetto work camp, and the hidden apartments that he lives in while waiting for the end of the war.
The entire movie is backed by gorgeous music (piano, naturally) that is perfectly suited for the scene in which it is placed. Stunning camera shots also capture the horrors of the Holocaust, without becoming too cheesy or overdone.
Although the movie's score and cinematography are excellent, the real heart of the movie is in Adrien Brody, the previously unkown Best Actor. He carries off the role flawlessly in every word, movement, and facial expression. I found myself crying with him, feeling terror when he felt terror, and even feeling hungry when he felt that way. This will definately be a movie to buy, and watch over and over again.
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