"The Pianist" (2002) - Movie Review

Survival. A word very commonly used in the wild life. It also gets used in the middle of nowhere with death any moment and nothing to do. In present world, many compare it as the struggle to survive in these tough and mean surroundings. Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) survives the holocaust. His means of his end and what does it reflect is the core substance of this film. This is a movie about the movements and happenings. This is the journey of the pianist who had the best of the worst to survive. He is not clever or smooth handed to get in the good books of German officials. He is the man at the right time in worst possible places but more importantly amongst some very good people.

This two and half hour movie has hardly any dialogue. It is all in the events and the people in their mode of running, hiding, suffering and hopelessly crying. It starts with the pleasant land of Warsaw slowly getting into the modes of destruction and tragedy. The movie translates from bad to worst possible conditions. Killings without mercy by the Germans and due to hunger are predominant. The Jews are collected and put into a confined society. The means for their earning is limited. Most of them make the best out of the ridiculous and tragic position they are in. Others succumb to hunger and thirst. It is sadness everywhere and people don’t know what to do. When Wladyslaw’s family gets separated from him and head towards the expected, he meets with his restaurant owner. He hides along with him and asks about Wladyslaw’s family and he tells the obvious and the response from his boss is “Perhaps they're lucky. The quicker the better.” And yes, he means it and in a way it is true.

Wladyslaw known for his playing the piano is now on his own. He is left in the ghetto. He knows the end is near and it is time to act. He acts and the journey continues. While his feelings are for the sufferings, he is indifferent to the opinion against Germans. He does not know where he stands in first place. The fight is there but where does it lead to? The place he is in right now will be the German’s in future. What is the remedy for this? Is there any end of this cycle? But he is too scared to think about this. He is too tired and everything which is in his mind is to be alive. He does not kid himself on the ambition of his family members being alive. He knows the truth and accepts it. The sorrow is always within him. He is a man who keeps everything to himself. This comes into test when his survival depends on his capability to be invisible, unnoticeable and no sign of his presence. Silence becomes his company and music is the only solace in his mind. This is the very existence of human being. When everything is lost, there is art to hang upon. Wladyslaw already an art loving person has more reason to stay alive. And for him there are good intentions in all the people he encounters. These intentions are his survival.

This is a film which does not move around having moving dialogues. There is every possible opportunity in this, but this is not something about various people. This is about one man. A man who rarely spoke and rarely spent his days in silence and rarely was separated from his loved ones. He is put into ultimate test. When something like this happens to any person, there comes a point of time wherein there is a question of why to breathe. And why to undergo this ordeal wherein he does not have any identifiable purpose. When we think about all this, the passion of his music is the driving factor. And tragically he never gets a chance to play his instrument. He plays in thin air. And when he gets the chance, he explodes his emotions through it. While we reside with his comfort in a peaceful sleep or quenched hunger, this is where he keeps the moment to himself. May be we enjoy the music he plays and may be understand some of the emotions he brings out of it, but it is his ultimate peace and war. For so long he has kept himself contained. From the start of the movie, he is being portrayed as a calm and terse person both in behaviour and in playing the piano. He does not strike high sounds, rather he plays for some one or other. At the near end, he plays and it is for himself. There is one audience who very well might kill him. For all the time he was hiding, this is the moment he does care about dying. For those few moments, he is devoid of fear and other natural factors which would eat him alive. This striking point is the movie. An unusual audience, an unusual situation and an unusual pianist in an unusual place. But in these unusual elements, it is the humanism which is common and usual. The scarcity of it is the punching chord of this film.

Adrien Brody physically and mentally strains himself to play the character of Wladyslaw. It is his master acting and would be tough to recreate it. It is equivalent to the character of Chuck Noland in Cast Away. The only difference is Chuck is a free man in a prison island. There is a definition in his boundaries. Wladyslaw on the other hand is a prisoner in a land of unknown definitions. It still is.