The Pianist

The Pianist is a story of the Holocaust through the eyes of one man, Władysław Szpilman, a piano player by trade. The film works by maintaining this singular view throughout the film aided well by Adrien Brody's excellent central performance. This structure is the power of the film as it reveals the slow steps of the process of both the horrors of the war and the holocaust. Whether it is the way the Jews are slowly downgraded into status going from second class citizens, to ghetto dwellers, to eventually sent to death camps. We all get it from this one man who is often saved only by sheer luck of the draw in one way or another. The choice to keep the perspective so close is particularly effective in terms of emphasizing with Szpilman not only in terms of heartbreak of the losses he experiences, the fear of the near death moments, the paranoia of those suspecting his place, but also the dreams of something else in the piano playing moments. One of my favorite scenes is when Szpilman witnesses an outbreak of violence, and perspective allows for such a unique and harrowing depiction of warfare. It's exceptional film about a single man's survival.
5/5