The Pianist

The Pianist (2002) is adapted from Władysław Szpilman's own memoir, and there is a reason Roman Polanski stayed so close to this material: he escaped the Kraków ghetto as a child and lost his mother at Auschwitz. Szpilman is a pianist playing on Warsaw radio. When Germany invades Poland he is moved into the ghetto with his family. At the railway station, as his family is loaded for Treblinka, a policeman pulls him out of the crowd by the arm, and that moment splits the film in two. What follows is hiding alone, from empty flat to empty flat, into attics and ruins. The film manufactures no heroism. Szpilman does not join the resistance and saves nobody. He survives, and the film does not present that as something to be ashamed of. Remaining alive is itself the act. Near the end there is a scene with a German officer, and the piece played is Chopin. That single scene carries the weight of everything before it. Adrien Brody won the Oscar for this and at twenty-nine became the youngest Best Actor. The film took the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It runs 150 minutes. Good for: war drama, Holocaust narratives, and true stories. Less good for: street executions and starvation are shown directly. It is heavy.