Saturday, January 21, 2012

Capsule Review: The Pianist (2002)

Władysław Szpilman was a Jewish-Polish Pianist who, despite all odds, managed to survive the horrific German occupation of Warsaw, Poland. Perhaps no other director was better prepared to tell his story than Roman Polanski, who escaped from the Krakow Ghetto as a child after the death of his mother. Despite devastatingly emotional material, Polanski doesn't wallow in the sadness, instead embracing moments of quiet beauty amongst one of the greatest tragedies in modern history. He rests the entire film on the pitch perfect performance of Adrien Brody, who goes from naive professional to harrowed, impossibly traumatized survivor in a world so unrecognizable, that it seems nearly post-apocalyptic. When you witness the barbaric behavior of the Nazis in the film, it might be easy to believe the end of the world wasn't far behind. The 2002 winner of the Palme D'or at Cannes, and a truly powerful film.

2 comments:

Kaijinu said...

we watched this ala film showing in my press ethics class, something about showing he true horrors of war. I instantly fell in love with this film!

Josh Heisie said...

I am the writer and director of an upcoming short horror film entitled “The Prospector’s Curse”. Below is a link to our press release and poster, and I would be very grateful if you could help spread the word by writing about my film on your website. I would also like to send you the completed film for review once it’s available. Please contact me at joshheisie@gmail.com if you’re interested.

http://www.wix.com/joshheisie/theprospectorscurse#!press-release

Thanks for your time, and all the best
Josh Heisie
www.joshheisie.com