December 31, 2002 -- "The Pianist" is a fantastic story of survival and the ability of the human spirit to endure. It gives devastating testimony to both people's capacity for evil and their heroic capacity for good. The film, directed by Roman Polanski, is based on the autobiographical book about this period by the late Wladyslaw Szpilman, one of the greatest pianists in the world, and a prolific composer of both classical and popular music. The book was written right after World War II, was suppressed for many years, but recently resurfaced. The film, in its own way, is as compelling an account of the Holocaust as "Schindler's List."

Szpilman (played by Adrien Brody of "The Affair of the Necklace") is shown playing in a radio studio in Warsaw as the film opens. It is the day Germany invaded the city. The studio is damaged in the attack and Szpilman must stop playing the piano. Szpilman and his family then begin the long endurance of the Nazi occupation of Poland. The occupation goes from bad to worse as the years of the war roll by. The worst of humanity is revealed as some Jews are shown profiteering at the expense of other Jews. Szpilman's family is rounded up and sent off to concentration camps. Only Szpilman and his brother escaped the death trains to work in the Warsaw ghetto as part of the resistance. Eventually Szpilman escapes the ghetto and survives alone, being endlessly hunted by the Nazis. He is helped by members of the Polish underground, including music lovers who remember his music. Szpilman can't play music on the piano in the room where he is hiding because he will be discovered and turned over to the Nazis if neighbors hear the sounds. Instead, his fingers play the piano silently in the air above the keyboard. He also composes music during this period of time, music so light and airy it betrays its dark origins.

Eventually Warsaw becomes mostly rubble. Few buildings remain in the devastated city. Szpilman lives like an animal, finding food where he can in the ruins of the city. How he survived, one of only a handful of survivors out of the 400,000 Jews in Warsaw before the war, is an amazing tale of one close call after another. Although Szpilman is clever and resourceful, a lot of the escapes are due to sheer dumb luck. The improbability of these escapes provides ample proof that few Jews survived the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. The rest of Szpilman's family died in the war. Polanski (himself a lucky survivor of the Holocaust) makes good use of point-of-view shots in the film. When the audience sees the Warsaw uprising, for instance, we see only what Szpilman can see from the window of the room where he was hiding. We see other Nazi atrocities on the street through a small hole in the window of a hospital room where Szpilman is hiding. It is as if we are in the room with Szpilman and we share his narrow window on the world outside. It is a very effective cinematic device, putting the audience in Szpilman's ragged shoes. The acting is great and the production values are top-notch. This is one of the best films of the year. It rates an A. This film also won the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival.

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