The 'Holocaust film' has lost a bit of value in recent years. Stories dealing with the subject matter were produced with such regularity and such high production values that they were often in the running for Oscars, a trend which led to some devaluing and even parody (for example at the hands of Ricky Gervais in 'Extras'). But that shouldn't blind us to the exceptional dramas that have been created from some of the many exceptional stories that emerged from this horrific period of history: of which
The Pianist is undoubtedly one of the most striking. Based, as so many of these outstanding films are, on a true story, The Pianist follows the life of Wladyslaw Szpilman - a successful Polish pianist who career is brutally interrupted by the German invasion. Being Jewish, he soon finds him caught up in the terrifying sequence of events that sees his family and friends first ostracized from society, then moved into ghettos, then bricked into ghettos, before being shipped to camps and systematically destroyed. The brutality that encircles Szpilman comes with alarming rapidity, allowing neither him nor the audience any time to adjust to the changes that unfold in his world: we jump from horror to horror, marveling at his survival as the Warsaw he knew is slowly but surely destroyed by the forces that exist so far outside of his control.
Moments of human kindness hold out against the encroaching forces, and they are the brief interventions that keep Szpilman alive: those and his inner strength, bolstered my his great interior catalogue of music that he falls back on in his darkest hours. It's a film in which so many of the issues around the Holocaust feature, infused into this incredible narrative. The ignorant racism of course comes out quickly, the 'banality of evil' emerges is addressed in the way that the majority of the population do so little to fight the will of their oppressors, and the gamut of personal reactions from fear to greed, resilience to weakness comes through in a host of characters caught up in the maelstrom of history. In short, this is a film whose scope will never cease to impress.
QUALITY
Polanski's high-contrast, high-impact visual style is vividly evident in the fantastic work of cinematographer
Pawel Edelman, and in the sweeping destruction of the later scenes, and it is these elements which the HD conversion works best in. The vivid reality the exists outside of the walled confines of Szpilman's resilient mind is perfectly suited to the colour balances and sharpness of the image produced in this conversion, and it makes for home cinema with real impact.
EXTRAS
Three new/unreleased interviews come with this release: Ronald Harwood (21 mins) Andrzej Szpilman (30 mins) and Daniel Szpilman (3 mins) Along with an already-released behind-the-scenes featurette that runs for around 40 mins, and the trailer. All the extras are SD, but there's nothing that's detrimental to.
The Pianist was released on Blu-ray by Studio Canal yesterday. Also, be sure to check out Laurent Kelly's Anatomy of a Masterpiece feature on Polanski's movie.