The Pianist is an absolute masterpiece.
Roman Polanski's tale of pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman's survival is a chronicle of how one man may survive the worst conceivable circumstances in a world gone utterly insane around him.The Pianist is a journey of survival shown through the eyes of a single Polish Jew pianist by the name of Wladyslaw Szpilman in an increasingly hostile environment surrounding the holocaust.
Interestingly, the director of this film, Roman Polanski himself happens to be a survivor of the holocaust, and hence not only is this film a picturization of the experiences of Szpilman as described in his biography but also a depiction of Polanski's actual childhood through the Nazi oppression.
Every adventure Szpilman embarks on is represented as a drop of water in a desolate desert.
However, in the end, the Oasis in the driest desert appears, and it is here that Polanski nails the core of human feeling.
By putting us in Szpilman's shoes, Polanski makes us, the audience, passengers in this journey of Szpilman in his transition from being a respected and confident pianist to becoming a target on the run.
Throughout the Warsaw uprising, we see only what Szpilman sees, a small sample of the horror unfolding elsewhere.
The movie is also a prime depiction of the sense of helplessness resulting from unchecked slaughter and oppression.
Helplessness while your home gets destroyed and also the fear that despite being away from the worst parts of the horror momentarily, the danger is not over and it is still out there ready to knock at the doors which make us realize that not only will it take a lot of wits but also a fair amount of fortune to come out of it alive.
Through Szpilman, Polanski tries to trigger that part of us that wants to hide in a room and only come out when it is all over. There is a fair amount of color aesthetics that support the theme of the film - for example, the gradual de-saturation of the colors in the pictures as the film progresses and as the city increasingly deteriorates until it is finally made to fall to ruins.
The title, like the film, is an understatement.
"The Pianist," directed by Roman Polanski, depicts the story of a Polish Jew, a classical musician, who escaped the Holocaust by stoicism and good fortune. This is not a thriller, and it avoids any temptation to inflate tension or sentiment; it is the pianist's account of what he witnessed and what happened to him.
When all those he loved perished, his survival was not a win; Polanski, speaking about his own experiences, has stated that the loss of his mother in the gas chambers remains so painful that only his own death will provide closure.
This is a very heartbreaking account about a normal human being whose family perished in the Holocaust and his survival through loneliness, hardship, malnutrition, and terror while hiding under the Nazi occupation.
It is, in my view, one of the best representations of the Holocaust.
Brody delivers a magnificent and heartfelt performance.
As Nazi policy tightens around the oppressed Jewish community, the narrative shows their emotional and cultural disintegration. Brody delivers an outstanding performance.
Polanski presented the gruesome realities of the Holocaust with no restraint.
The most beautiful element of the picture, however, is that the filmmaker has not lost sight of his subject, and instead of focusing too much on the holocaust horror, he has braided the true-life survival narrative around devilish occurrences. Every adventure Szpilman embarks on is represented as a drop of water in a desolate desert. However, in the end, the Oasis in the driest desert appears, and it is here that Polanski nails the core of human feeling.
Author: Sriharsh Aditya
Editor: Akash Rupam Ekka