Reviewing Polanski's The Pianist:SEEING WARSAW THROUGH THE EYES OF ONE MAN
...hettoes, then onto trains for their eventual extermination. It is here where the story of Wladyslaw’s struggle for survival unfolds- amidst hiding, illnesses, fear, and strangely, help from the most unexpected of sources. ‘The Pianist’ stars actor Adrien Brody in perhaps his most outstanding role to date. Brody portrays Szpilman to excellent effect, not merely because of his vague resemblance to the man himself, but because of his fine-boned, sensitive features and lengthy frame, that enhances his role as a distinguished pianist in the beginning of the movie, and in later parts, successfully gives the body of his suffering character a frightening skeletal quality. Also, his haunted gaze out of the windows of his hiding places is one that strikes the audience with terrifying recognition, because Polanski makes sure that it is through these eyes that the audience catches glimpses of Nazi sadism on the streets below the hiding place of Szpilman. The movie also stars veteran actor Frank Finlay as Szpilman’s father, Maureen Lipman as his mother, Jessica Kate Meyer, Julia Rayner and Ed Stoppard as his siblings, as well as Thomas Kretschmann as a German Officer and Emilia Fox as Dorota, a Polish friend of Szpilman’s. Adapted from the autobiography of Polish composer and pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, Polanski’s latest work bears his signature morbidity and floridity, yet, Polanski is able to weave, skillfully, a touch of comedy into ‘The Pianist’ that is perhaps not for humour but to highlight the painful absurdity of the holocaust in itself. One memorable scene that is somewhat funny in this context is when Szpilman staggers comically out of a bomb-shattered building to meet the Russians who had driven the Nazis out of Poland wearing a German military coat he had received from a German officer. The audience holds its breath, knowing full well the mistake Szpilman is making. Ultimately, it is this mixture of fear, tension and comedy that makes ‘The Pianist’ a success. Having grown up as an eyewitness to the devastation of Poland by the Nazi Germans, many question if Polanski’s The Pianist may have been, to a certain extent, autobiographical. Whether...