Rating: 
Summary: It deserves all the awards
Review: The Pianist was the winner of Academy Awards for Best Actor (Adrien Brody), Best Director (Roman Polanski) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ronald Harwood), as well as the Golden Palm at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, among other awards and honors. It is based on the autobiography of Wladyslaw Szpilman (portrayed by Brody), a Polish Jew and concert pianist who eluded the Nazi death camps and survived the war by hiding in the ruins of Warsaw. I agree with most of the reviews below as to the quality of the film and its acting -- all the awards are well-deserved.It should be noted that there are several interesting minor characters in the film as well. Perhaps the most memorable is the Nazi officer (based on a real person) who helps Szpilman toward the end of the film. But also notable are Szpilman's family members, as well as the crazy lady searching for her husband, Szpilman's lost love, the "Pied Piper" character, etc. All add depth and color to the drama of a world gone mad.
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable!
Review: 'The Pianist' is a brilliant adaptation of the book by Wladyslaw Szpilman. I saw the DVD version after I had seen the movie in theaters 4 times, and after reading the book twice. The book was written immediately after the war, and it has a lot of detail that is unique. It is one man's perspective, and his lack of bitterness is remarkable. Roman Polanski has retained the honesty and the detached observation of Szpilman while making the movie. As far as the movie was concerned, the DVD did not add to what I had already experienced. For me, the movie made a deep emotional impact, and the book is very inspiring. I liked 'The Pianist' even more than Schindler's list. It goes straight to the heart, possibly because of the truth and the directness in it. Adrien Brody- as Szpilman- is brilliant, and fully deserving of his Oscar. He is in nearly every scene, and he expresses so much without any words! Polanski and screenplay writer Ron Harwood have stayed very close to the book, at times including an entire scene, with dialogues and details from the book. The DVD has, on the other side, interviews with Polanski, Brody, Harwood, and Thomas Kreschman (he played the German officer in the movie). It shows what went into the making of this great film. The German archives have footage of the Jews being taken to the train, etc. They were used in creating some of the scenes. Some things came from Polanski's childhood experiences- the Jewish police says to Szpilman, after saving his life, "Don't run!"- it came from Polanski's own experience. What kept Szpilman alive after he lost his entire family was his love for music. The DVD has a clip of the real Szpilman playing Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor- the music he played before and after the bombing of the radio station. If only he had lived to see this movie! I would highly recommend the movie 'The Pianist', and particularly the DVD version for the extra material that comes with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Underwhelming, desperately in need of a good film editor!
Review: The music is, as expected, brilliant. The sets and cinematography are magnificient. Adrien Brody, as usual, puts in an excellent performance---he has probably the most expressive eyes in cinema. The script is also solid, few dead spots anywhere. What keeps this from being a *great* film, however, is Roman Polanski's lack of discipline as a director, or apparently the lack of strong producers willing to trim off all the fat---and boy is there ever lots of fat! At 2-1/2 hours, this film actually felt twice as long as "Schindler's List" which is over 3 hours and covers a much wider scope! It takes forever to depict a few simple scenes (for example, a starving Brody trying to open a can of cucumbers) and characters (such as Brody's family during the Nazi takeover of Warsaw). I get the impression that Polanski was given this free hand out of "sensitivity" rather than artistic good sense, simply because he himself was a Holocaust survivor. The result is that unlike "Schindler's List" this film has almost no recognizable subtext. It's been promoted as a "tale of survival" or "one man surviving for the sake of his love of his music" but in actuality it feels more like a very slow documentary. Brody actually spends very little time onscreen playing the piano...the first 2/3 of the film mainly centers around the hellish life of Polish Jews herded into the Warsaw Ghetto before getting shipped off to concentration camps. Brody's character seems less of a tenacious survivor than a bumbling, dazed butterfly---saved mainly by one fortuitous turn of events after another rather than any Herculean personal efforts. Due to the bloated pacing and relatively passive central character, "The Pianist" lacks any clear focus and never develops any consistent momentum. The viewer, like Brody's character, just sits there waiting for it all to end---we WATCH things happpening, but are never made a PART of them.
Rating:
Summary: A True Masterpiece
Review: The Pianist is a story of unthinkable evil and how one man survives it through the power of music. It is brilliantly acted by Adrien Brody - who earned his oscar every second he was on screen. Roman Polanski directs it beautifully and elegantly and the script is heart-wrenching at times, but at all times, masterfully written. This movie is something everyone should see. It brings a disturbing and horrifying period in history out in the light for all to see while at the same time telling the remarkable story of a talented man and how he survived it. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen.
Rating:
Summary: The Pianist
Review: I watched tis movie last night, and I was really moved by it.I admit while watching it, I thought about other Holocaust movies I've seen. This one seemed very personal,and very lonely.Director Roman Polanski,did a great job of letting me feel the human condition of an oppressed people.The bonus material in the DVD version was also helpful.
I thought Adrien Brody was most beautifully expressive.
This movie is a must see.I will buy the DVD for my collection.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the greatest Holocaust movies
Review: I purchased this DVD without first seeing the movie in theaters, and I knew from the reviews I read I wouldn't be disappointed. This is a classic masterpiece of one man's struggle against the inhumanity of the Nazis of world war II Germany. Adrien Brody's portrayal of Polish pianist Wladislaw Szpilman is both beautiful and nuanced. Nothing overdone. Although I wouldn't rank this as high as Schindler's List (as some have done), it's definitely one of the finest of the Holocaust movies ever made.
Rating:
Summary: How to Survive Holocaust... (4.5 stars)
Review: There is no object lesson in how to survive something so horrible as the genocide of Jews in WWII, but the story of Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman definitely deserved to be told. Born in 1911, in his early 30's he escaped Holocaust and somehow scraped along during the uprising in the Jewish ghetto, down through the gruesome near-end war days in his beloved, destroyed Warsaw. Afterwards he wrote a book about his ordeal, which his son had published in 1999, one year before Szpilman's death. If he lived two years on, he would have seen his story filmed. Shot by controversial French director of Polish birth Roman Polanski (himself a Holocaust survivor), this French-Polish-British-German-Dutch cooperation (2002) became a hit with critics and viewers alike and scored a shower of prizes and awards, including three Oscars. The focus on one single person prevents "The Pianist" to be so emotionally sweeping as "Schindler's List", nevertheless, the performance New Yorker Adrien Brody breathes to Szpilman's character is stunningly wide-spectral, worthy of his Oscar. Also the cinematography manages to offer not a few stunning shots -- one comes when Szpilman walks the deserted city covered with snow. The film is a special treat for those who like piano music of Fryderyk Chopin -- if they are able to watch the many depicted horrors of senseless cruelty. The movie begins with a historic moment of Germans bombing the Polish radio in September 1939 when Szpilman was in studio, recording Chopin's posthumously published Nocturne in C sharp minor. Symbolically, the broadcasting after the war began with the same performer and the same work. But really show-stopping are some other piano scenes of the movie. Thematically, the film offers nothing new -- topic of Jewish plight is frequent especially in European film-making tradition. Also recommended is the Czech film "Divided We Fall" (2000) and Czecho-Slovak cooperation "The Shop On The Main Street" (1965). For a person in a civilised country, watching "The Pianist" should also be a disturbing experience. It's about the time when people were losing faith, seeing the evil prevail. It's another warning about what war does to (and with) people.
Rating:
Summary: Another case of the small screen intimacy enhancing a film
Review: THE PIANIST has garnered praise from every quarter, including the Academy of Motion Pictures Sciences, and for very solid reasons. This is a finely spun tale of the courage and dignity of a human soul pitted against one of the cruelist moments in history: the Nazi Final Solution for the Jews in WWII. For this viewer the larger screen version, though impressive, seemed to attract the vastness of the problem, the litter of corpses, the unrelenting bombings, spontaneous killings, etc. Viewing this movie on the DVD format makes the story far more intimate and the performances by all members of the cast, headed superbly by Adrien Brody, much more compassionate and human and hence more credible. Perhaps the story lends itself more to the hushed, in the living room atmosphere that is mirrored in the film than to the epic proportions on a large screen in a dark theatre with a distracting audience. Roman Polanski has delivered a stunning masterwork here and it is good to know that the more accessible form on DVD will live on much beyond the theatre run.
Rating:
Summary: I was in awe...
Review: I didn't think that it was possible to out-do Schindler's List which WAS my absolute favorite movie about the Holocaust. After seeing Schindler's List, I had the opportunity to visit a "labor camp" in Germany and it made the movie even more profound to me. I thought that there would never be a movie made that moved me as much as that one had. Then I saw, "The Pianist". I don't know if it is that I'm also a pianist, but this movie moved me in a way that I have never been moved before. Don't get me wrong, I'm taking not one thing away from Spielberg, but Roman Polanski made this movie much more personal. It is told from the point of view of ONE man which makes it easier to identify with the character. I had never heard of Adrian Brody before this movie, but I can definitely see why he won the Oscar. He did an amazingly believeable portrayal of Szpielman, his struggles, his agony, and his torment. There is violence, some language, I don't recall any nudity or sexuality, but it is not a children's movie. Maybe mid- to late teen, but not below that.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: I rented this film expecting a story about the Holocaust. What I saw was so much more. The Pianist is a film about a Jewish piano player (whose name I will not even try to spell) who plays the last song heard on the Polish radio before the Nazis invade Poland in 1939. His family is shipped off to the death camps whereas he is saved, but is forced to live in hiding for almost a year. He survives for the sake of his music. What an incredibly brave thing! It is his music which saves him in the end; he is caught by a German Nazi who tells him to play a song on the piano. After he has finished playing, the Nazi decides to leave him alone in hiding, for the music is so beautiful. He even brings him food and clothing when the Nazis flee from the incoming Russians. After returning to a normal lifestyle, he goes back to playing the piano on the Polish radio. There is not much to say about this film other than the fact that I was stunned and awed. This movie captures the very essence of what the Jewish people went through during the Nazi occupation. I am a big history buff and this film was very accurate. Some scenes were very horrifying, namely the scene when the Nazis pulled several Jews out of a walking line and told them all to lie down, then shot them all. It was a very well done film, and I would advise anyone to see it, whether or not they know anything about the Holocaust or WWII. Adrian Brody, who plays the pianist, certainly deserved the Best Actor Oscar for his performace. It was simply stunning, as was the rest of this film.
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