The Pianist
The year is almost over and I have no idea what you guys watched these days (except for Shii who kindly told me what he is seeing at this year’s Viennale). Other than that, my recommendations list from you guys is shrinking and nothing much is being added to it. OK, I admit it’s shrinking very, very slowly but some progress actually happens!
“The Pianist” is one of these films which I planned to see when it came out (oh God that was 2002) and now, 12 years later, I finally came around to do so, but only because the movie was conveniently on Netflix. Unlike most other films I see (hello “10 things I hate about you”), I think that my enjoyment of “The Pianist” is pretty independent of my current life situation. It’s one of those utterly universal films, a glimpse in history which deals with nothing else but the most general human condition. I probably would have liked the movie just as much at age 18 or at age 38.
With that said, the first part of the film was absolutely unbearable. While the family was still alive, everything was just so damn tragic. Ironically, it was only after Szpilman lost almost everything that his suffering seemed easier to bear for me as a viewer. I knew that he was a real person who was survived the holocaust, so the movie became a little less scary after he actually had nothing to lose anymore. We also saw significantly less human interaction with the Germans later in the film, while the first part showed a lot of suffering people. (That woman who killed her crying baby so it won’t give away her position, that one is haunting me more than it would have at age 18, I admit that.)
The only thing that struck me as slightly odd in the film was how every woman apart from Szpilman’s family was blonde and stylish – heck I thought Dorota and Regina were the same person, that’s how similar they looked to me. In general, I was a little taken aback by how overstyled the movie was, but at the same time it actually made the movie look great.
Polanski is kind of like Gus van Sant – he can do blockbuster and he can do small indie-ish films. For Polanski I think I prefer his early and late work over his famous Hollywood films, and for Gus van Sant I prefer his big name films like “Good Will Hunting”. Overall, “The Pianist” is pretty much just as awesome as I expected.
The random start of a quest to comment blog posts!
Birdman was great, but you’ll watch that one eventually anyway. Oh god, i loved jigoku de naze warui endlessly, but i don’t know if it’s just because i realized i don’t consume as much japanese pop culture as i used to and i totally miss japan or because the movie is actually good. The biggest surprise was definitely whiplash and turist was just as great as expected. Everything else was pretty much not recommendable.
And some rent about the actual movie: recently i played the piano and a friemd compared me to the protagonist of the film. I can’t remember much from the film, because i saw it in my teens, but i still found the comparison absurd.
Thank you for the recommendations! Ohh I am so looking forward to your comments. :D
Also – oh my God, yes you do look like Adrien Brody. That is so fantastic I can’t believe I didn’t come up with it myself.