 May
2003
This month's review:
The Pianist
A local reviewer says The Pianist is about “the
triumph of the human spirit.” Maybe so. But what is the human
spirit? Is there really a “human” spirit?
The Pianist takes place in Warsaw, Poland, during
World War II. Wladyslaw Szpilman, a member of a Jewish family, plays
the piano professionally wherever and whenever he can get work. As
the movie opens, the Germans are invading Poland, and shortly
thereafter they begin their murderous treatment of the Jews in
Warsaw, forcing them to move to the “ghetto” and building a wall
around that section of the city. Once the wall is built, German
treatment of the Jews gets worse and worse: they’re forced to give
up most of their money, can work only in very restricted jobs, and
have little to eat. Many of them are brutally mistreated or killed
by German soldiers. Eventually most of the Polish Jews, including
Szpilman’s family, are shipped off in railroad cars to concentration
camps, but Szpilman himself is a survivor. He somehow gets separated
from the others and manages to escape the death sentence of the
concentration camp. He’s helped by other Jews and eventually is
befriended by some non-Jewish Poles, who in risking their lives to
feed and hide him show that they love their neighbors as much as
themselves. Conditions in Warsaw become worse and worse, and it gets
harder and harder for Szpilman to survive. But survive he does.
The Pianist is about the horrors of war, of course,
and it’s certainly about man’s inhumanity to man. But it’s also
about the transcendent quality of art. Music is one of God’s
greatest gifts, and the film almost seems to suggest that Szpilman
survives because he’s the bearer of a transcendent quality—the
beauty and the uplifting power of music.
That brings us back to the “human spirit” question. In one of the
film’s most beautiful and riveting moments, Szpilman is discovered
in his hiding place by a German officer. For all Szpilman knows,
this is the end—the German officer will arrest or kill him. But this
isn’t your usual German officer. He seems genuinely interested in
Szpilman, what he is doing and what he is about. When the officer
learns that Szpilman is a pianist, he asks him to play something.
Then he lets him go, saying, “It is God taking care of us. Or at
least we have to believe that.” Perhaps we can say that The
Pianist is really about the triumph of God’s spirit working
in us.
The Pianist won one Academy award for its director,
Roman Polanski, and another for its star, Adrien Brody—both well
deserved awards. It should appeal to anyone who appreciates music,
anyone who is interested in history, and anyone who believes that we
should love our neighbors as ourselves. The movie is rated R,
probably because of the war violence and some raw language near the
end (though none that’s gratuitous).
Highly recommended.
Ratings: 3 ˝
stars
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Index of movie
reviews...
(2003 reviews through present)
Jay Maurer, a member of West Side Presbyterian Church, is
a long-term movie buff and former college teacher of The Film as
Literature. He has written movie reviews for The Good News
(West Side newsletter) since 2002.
If you have comments or questions
about the movie (or play) reviews, please contact Jay at
dramachap@msn.com.
Ratings are expressed in
increments of Ľ star.
A rating of 2 ˝ stars or higher is meant to be a recommendation.
1 star: poor
2 stars: minimally satisfactory
3 stars: quite good
4 stars: superb
Criteria for determining the ratings:
- Reflection, either explicit or implicit, of Christian values,
including suitability of language and lack of gratuitous violence
- Quality of the acting
- Originality
- Unity of the entire picture
- Substance, or in the words of C.S. Lewis, weight
Other Christian movie review Web sites:
Plugged In Online
ChristianityTodayMovies.com
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