Movie Screening : The Pianist
a biographical war film directed by Roman
Polanski, starring Adrien Brody. It is an adaptation of the autobiography of
the same name by Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman. The film is a
co-production between Poland, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Władysław Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a famous
Polish Jewish pianist working for Warsaw Radio, sees his whole world collapse
with the Invasion of Polandon 1 September 1939 and the subsequent outbreak of
World War II. After the radio station is rocked by explosions from German
bombing, Szpilman goes home and learns that Britain and France have declared
war on Nazi Germany. He and his family rejoice, believing the war will end
quickly.When the German Army enters Warsaw, living
conditions for the Jewish population gradually deteriorate as their rights are
slowly eroded: first they are allowed only a limited amount of money per
family, then they must wear armbands imprinted with the blue Star of David to
identify themselves, and eventually, in November 1940, they are all forced into
the squalid Warsaw Ghetto. There, they face hunger, persecution and humiliation
from the SS and the ever-present fear of death, torture and starvation. The
Nazis become increasingly sadistic and the family witnesses many horrors
inflicted on other Jews. In one scene, a group of Einsatzgruppen, led by an
NCO, go into the apartment across from the Szpilmans. They order the family on
the top floor to stand, then when an elderly man in a wheelchair is unable to
comply, the SS throw him off the balcony. The rest of the family are then taken
out into the street and shot, and the SS drive off, running over the bodies
along the way.Before long, the family, along with
thousands of others, are rounded up as part of Operation Reinhard for
deportation to the extermination facility atTreblinka. As the Jews are being
forced onto rail cars, Szpilman is saved at the last moment by one of the
Jewish Ghetto Police, who happens to be a family friend. Separated from his
family and loved ones, Szpilman manages to survive. At first he is pressed into
a German reconstruction unit inside the ghetto as a slave labourer. During this
period, another Jewish labourer confides to Szpilman two critical pieces of
information: one, that many Jews who still survive know of the German plans to
exterminate them, and two, that a Jewish uprising against the Germans is being
actively prepared for. Szpilman volunteers his help for the plan. He is
enlisted to help smuggle weapons into the ghetto, almost being caught at one
point.Later, before the uprising starts, Szpilman
decides to go into hiding outside the ghetto, relying on the help of non-Jews
who still remember him such asAndrzej Bogucki and his wife Janina Bogucki.
While living in hiding, he witnesses many horrors committed by the SS, such as
widespread killing, beating and burning of Jews and others (the burning is
mostly shown during the two Warsaw uprisings). In 1943, Szpilman also finally
witnesses the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising he helped to bring about, and its
aftermath as the SS forcibly enters the ghetto and kills nearly all the
remaining insurgents. A year goes by and life in Warsaw further deteriorates.
Szpilman is forced to flee his first hiding place after a German neighbor
discovers he is hiding there. In his second hiding place, near a German
military hospital, he is shown into a room with a piano and then told to be as
quiet as possible. Here, he nearly dies from jaundice and malnutrition.In August 1944, the Polish resistance
mounts the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation. Szpilman witnesses
the Polish insurgents fighting the Germans outside his window. Again, Szpilman
narrowly escapes death when a German tank shells the apartment he is hiding in.
Warsaw is virtually razed and depopulated as a result of the fighting (see
Aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising). After the surviving Warsaw population is
deported from the ruins and the German SS escape from the approaching Soviet
Army, Szpilman is left entirely alone. In buildings still standing, he searches
desperately for food. While trying to open a can of Polish pickles, Szpilman is
discovered by a captain of the Wehrmacht, Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann).
Upon questioning Szpilman and discovering that he is a pianist, Hosenfeld asks
Szpilman to play something for him on the grand piano that happens to be in the
building. The decrepit Szpilman, still a musical genius, plays "Ballade in
G-Minor, Op. 23" by Frederic Chopin, moving Hosenfeld to spare Szpilman.Hosenfeld lets Szpilman continue hiding in
the attic of the building and even brings him food regularly, thus saving his
life. Another few weeks go by, and the German troops are forced to withdraw
from Warsaw due to the advance of Red Army troops. Before leaving the area,
Hosenfeld asks Szpilman what his name is, and, upon hearing it, remarks that it
is apt for a pianist (Szpilman being the Polish rendering of the German
Spielmann, meaning "man who plays"). Hosenfeld also promises to
listen for Szpilman on Polish Radio. He gives Szpilman his Wehrmacht uniform
greatcoat and leaves. Later, that coat is almost fatal for Szpilman when Polish
troops, liberating the ruins of Warsaw, take him for a German officer and shoot
at him. He is eventually able to convince them that he is Polish, and they stop
shooting. One soldier asks him why he is wearing a Wehrmacht coat, to which
Szpilman replies simply, "I'm cold."As newly freed prisoners of a concentration
camp pass a fenced-in enclosure of German prisoners of war sitting on the
ground and guarded by Soviet soldiers, they start collectively verbally abusing
the prisoners, with one angry pol that he used to be a violinist, now without
his precious violin. A visibly beaten Hosenfeld, a shadow of his former once
proud demeanor, comes up to the fence and asks the violinist if he is familiar
with Szpilman, a Polish radio pianist, which the violinist confirms. Hosenfeld
states that he helped him in hiding and asks if Szpilmann can return the favor.
Szpilman, now playing live on Warsaw Radio, is visited by the violinist in the
studio, who takes him to the site with all the prisoners having been removed
along with any trace of the stockade. In the film's final scene, Szpilman
triumphantly performs Chopin's Grand Polonaise brillante in E flat major to a
large audience. Notes at the end of the film indicate that Hosenfeld died in a
Russian prisoner-of-war camp in 1952 and Chopin's music plays on through the
credits.
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