Released in 2002 to incredible critical acclaim, The Pianist is one of those movies that I have always wanted to get around to watching, but never have. Well, I came across the Blu-Ray in a second hand store and thought I would give it a shot. To be honest, the fact that Roman Polanski (Tess, Pirates, Frantic, The Ninth Gate) directed this did take away a bit of the shine of the movie for me. However, I can see why there are so many people who hold this in such high regard. Just be warned, this is a pretty brutal watch!
How to Download The Pianist
The Pianist was released on 24 May 2002 in Cannes, on 6 September 2002 in Poland, on 25 September 2002 in France, on 24 October 2002 in Germany, and on 24 January 2003 in United Kingdom. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice. If you like xxxx, check out also his other films- film one and film two.
The Movie Review
The list of awards that The Pianist won is just incredible. It won the Oscar for Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, as well as being nominated for several others too. It won countless other awards, and at the time it was released, some were even saying that this was one of the greatest movies ever made.
This is a biopic of Władyslaw Szpilman. Szpilman was a Holocaust Survivor and a very talented pianist, and this is his story of how he survived World War II. Survived is the keyword here, as Szpilman was very much a survivor and was willing to do whatever it took to survive. Not just getting out of dangerous situations, but the sheer determination and grit that this man had to not just lie down and die is truly outstanding.
The thing with The Pianist is that there are some very hard hitting and brutal scenes in the movie, which you would expect, given the nature of the story. We get to see the start of the devastation of Warsaw and how at first, Szpilman and his family have hope that the UK and France will soon bring this war to an end, but as we all know, things do not workout that way and in what feels like no time at all, his family are taken away to a concentration camp, but he manages to escape.
Not knowing the story of Władyslaw Szpilman before watching the movie, I found this to be a very tense movie, as I never knew if this was finally the moment where he would be caught. The scenes with him and German Captain, Wilm Hosenfeld, are fantastic, and while Adrien Brody is the one who gets all the attention for this movie, Thomas Kretschmann is fantastic in his role as Hosenfeld.
One thing I will say is that while we do get a bit of text saying how it all turned out for Władyslaw Szpilman, this is not the kind of movie that leaves you feeling all happy. When the credits started to roll, I was at a loss for what I wanted to do, as it was a very powerful movie and a movie that I think does hit very hard. I stupidly watched this pretty late at night and legit had a hard time getting to sleep after it!
I thought that The Pianist was a very good movie, but I certainly would not be in a hurry to watch this again. It tells a brutal and very engaging story of a man who managed to survive incredible odds, and the fact that he never lost his love for music in the process shows what a great spirit he had. I would recommend having something a bit more chill or lighthearted on hand to watch after this!
