The Pianist

Reviewed by:
Paul Ulane

Multiple Oscar wins don’t necessarily make for good movie watching, but in the case of The Pianist, the overhype isn’t quite so “over” after all. The true story of pianist and composer Wladyslaw Szpilman’s (Adrien Brody) fight to survive in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, this downer of a film is moving without being too melodramatic. The story is given more historical perspective with extensive extras that provide insight into how the filmmakers preserved the tale’s accuracy. The hefty “Story of Survival” marches through many different aspects of the process, including interviews with Roman Polanksi about his own childhood escape from the Krakow ghetto at age seven, while disturbing real footage of townspeople being shuttled around in the ghettos just makes matters grimmer. It’s a good one, just make sure you save it for a rainy, morose, more Nazi-occupied day.

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