The Pianist (2002)

“I told her not to worry, you had your papers on you. If you’d been hit by a bomb, they’d have known where to take you.” – Henryk Szpielman

Number of Times Seen – at least 3 (5 Mar 2003 in the Theater, DVD, 8 Aug 2013)

Brief Synopsis – The true story of an accomplished Jewish Polish pianist and his fight to try and stay alive in Warsaw during WWII

My Take on it – This movie IMHO was clearly the best movie of 2002. I still can’t understand how Chicago (2002) could get 13 nominations and 6 wins at the Oscars and this movie only walked away with 3 awards (albeit 3 prominent awards). It won best actor for Adrien Brody, Best adapted screenplay and also surprised everyone with a win for Roman Polanski as Best Director.  I said it in my review of Chicago (2002), but I think that the academy was torn due to all the publicity surrounding Polanski fugitive status and didn’t know how to react. They wanted to show that this movie was great, but didn’t feel that Polanski deserved Best Picture due to his past, but in the same breathe they wanted to acknowledge the fact that they understand and sympathize with his past (Polanski is also a holocaust survivor) and that his movie was a near masterpiece.

Brody was superb in this movie and is truly the glue that keeps the story flowing even when he didn’t speak. He was able to show us his emotions on his face and by his own body language.  We could see the artist who due to torment has changed, but still strives to reclaim his life.

With Brody’s Best Oscar win, he accomplished two things never done before:

1. He became the youngest est Actor winner at the age of 29.

2. He became the first awardee to take Halle Barry by surprise and land a whopping kiss on her lips upon his ascension to the stage.

Truly an amazing emotional ride that is one of the best Holocaust movies ever made (Schindler’s List (1993) is still by far the most amazing one made)

Bottom Line – Amazingly done emotional Holocaust movie. Highly Recommended!

Rating – Oscar Worthy