Barnes & Noble

After a string of mediocre movies that hardly hinted at Roman Polanski's early glory, The Pianist represents a dazzling comeback -- the director's best work since Chinatown. Call it the anti-Spielberg Holocaust movie. Like Schindler’s List, The Pianist is based on a true story -- in this case, the autobiography of classical pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Polish Jew who escaped the Nazis and spent World War II hiding out in Warsaw. But where Spielberg’s film is operatic and ultimately sentimental, Polanski’s is austere, tightly focused, almost clinical in the way it details Szpilman’s quest for survival. An upper-class dandy whose interests in life are limited to music and women, Szpilman is miraculously spared when his entire family, along with the rest of the Warsaw Ghetto, is carted off to the death camps. Brody, in an Oscar-winning performance, is magnificent as a man who is single-minded in his obsession with his music and tenacious in his will to live but hardly heroic: Szpilman’s initial salvation is a stroke of sheer luck. Later, in a stunning and lyrical scene that the entire film builds toward, we see that ultimately his talent as a pianist is the only thing that saves him. If many of the early images from The Pianist are familiar from other Holocaust films, once Szpilman is alone, holed up in a series of empty apartments, peering helplessly through the windows at the war’s devastation, Polanski brings a fresh perspective. The shots of an emaciated, barely alive Szpilman, wandering like a ghost through the rubble of the bombed-out ghetto, are unforgettable. A Polish Holocaust survivor himself, the director films Szpilman’s story with a clarity and authority that clearly derive from his own experience. Both Polanski -- who fled the U.S. decades ago after statutory rape charges -- and newcomer Brody scored upsets at the 2003 Academy Awards, winning the Best Director and Best Actor awards, respectively. Their surprise triumphs are testaments to the power of this remarkable film. Kryssa Schemmerling

All Movie Guide

This powerful film by Roman Polanski tackles a subject matter and time that has been covered exhaustively in feature films, TV movies and documentaries, but The Pianist is another exceptional story that needed to be told. There have been plenty of dramas regarding the Warsaw Ghetto and the Jewish resistance, but less about the nearly complete destruction of Warsaw by the Nazis near the end of the war just as the Russians were closing in. The Pianist is mostly from the perspective of Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), who escapes the concentration camps by luck and is briefly involved in smuggling guns into the Warsaw Ghetto. He escapes the Ghetto with the help of the Polish resistance and spends the rest of the film struggling to survive, while watching the unfolding events in Warsaw as the city is torn to pieces by the Nazis. It is a harrowing and moving story and Szpilman is a completely sympathetic character who doesn't seem at first cut out to survive under such conditions. There are both good and bad Jews, Poles and Nazis in the story, though most of the Nazi characters with the exception of Captain Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann) are monstrous. Aside from the relentless horrors that Szpilman witnesses, there are moments of great beauty in the film especially in the scenes where he plays piano. The cinematography by Pawel Edelman is fantastic. Beyond being a great film, The Pianist is a testament to the incredible struggle of the Polish people during World War II. Adam Bregman

Entertainment Weekly

A movie of riveting power and sadness. Lisa Schwarzbaum

New York Times

One of the very few nondocumentary movies about Jewish life and death under the Nazis that can be called definitive. A.O. Scott

Washington Post

A near-masterpiece. Desson Howe

New York Observer

A great film of integrity and unforgettable power that leaves you breathless with gratitude. Rex Reed

Product Details

• UPC: 824255005340
• Source: MAPLE
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Time: 2:28:00
• Sales Rank: 33,929