Based on the extraordinary events of Polish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman's life, The Pianist gave Roman Polanski the chance to revisit and distil his own experiences living as a Polish Jew during World War II. A long-awaited project for the director, this personal angle has resulted in a deeply affecting film that marks a startling return to form for Polanski.

Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is a pianist recording a recital for a local radio station when bombs drop on Warsaw in 1939, just before the Nazi occupation of the city really begins to take hold. As he and his family are slowly stripped of their rights, they endure the humiliation of being forced to live in a walled ghetto, already overcrowded with the entire Jewish population of Warsaw. In a lucky twist, Szpilman is handed the chance to escape, given that he leaves his family in the ghetto to be inevitably shipped off to concentration camps, becoming a fugitive living in terror and isolation.

Taking a classical and measured approach to structure and style, Polanski's elegant film depicts the brutalities and dehumanising experiences that Szpilman endured without making him a hero; he is more of an observer who is tortured by what he helplessly watches. With the film focusing on events entirely from his experiences yet furnished with very little dialogue, Brody gives a subtle yet powerful performance and the end result is devastating. This is as much a standout film for Polanski as it is for his immensely talented leading man.

On the DVD: The Pianist arrives on disc with a surprisingly sparse amount of extras. Only one is really substantial: "A Story of Survival", a 45-minute making of feature which gives a lot of time to Roman Polanski and his own experiences; both of making the film and relating it to his time spent in the Krakow ghetto during World War II. Adrien Brody also features, talking about his preparation for the role and his experiences working with Polanski on such a personal project. Featuring alongside is footage of the real Warsaw ghetto taken by Nazi soldiers and the photographs used as a basis for some of the film's key scenes. Most poignant are the images of the real Szpilman, who died in 2000, still finding pleasure in playing the piano despite his horrendous past. A photo gallery, trailer, posters and filmographies are perfunctory additions. --Laura Bushell

Incredibly gripping film based on a true story. Goes to great lengths to show the horrors of the Holocaust. Brilliantly directed and brilliantly acted, it's a rare Hollywood film that doesn't get all sentimental like the other war films.

When I first saw this in the cinema when it first came out, it was empty. For whatever reason no one went to see it.

Then it won Oscars and people now think it a great film. I sometimes wonder if they are affected by the awards. I don't think it was that well reviewed on first release.

I saw Ronald Harwood recently in Bradford. I have his screenwriting book. He said that he was chosen by the director to write it because he, Harwood had just written Taking Sides which is set in WWII and it about music. And you only thought actors were typecast.

I do wonder if the book on which it is based is any good.

The film really should be watched in all schools, now and at all times in the future. So few children these days know anything about history - before 1990, that films like this are an important tool to help them understand the horrors of mankind and how to prevent them in the future.

The Pianist is the true story of the struggle to survive the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto of Polish Jewish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman.

It tells how he survived against the odds , hiding in various parts of the city , before his life was saved by a German officer , who despised the Nazis brutality and genocide , a true righteous gentile , Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
Unlike many personal holocaust accounts , which are of concentration and death camps , this one is an account of life and death in the Warsaw ghetto.

The movie portrays life and death in the ghetto : the disease , the starvation and the Nazi mass murders of hundreds of thousands of men , women and children. The imagery of the ghetto is brough to life, with heartrending scenes of the Jews being herded into and out of the ghetto and of Nazi brutality. REcreated scenes, will stay with the viewer, like a young woman being shot in the head for asking the Nazi guard where the Nazis are taking them, a mother holding a small boy who is dying of thirst, and begging for water for her child.
A little girl, holding an empty bird cage, and crying because she cannot find her family.
Roman Polanski has showed his flare for directing once again, and brilliant acting by Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman, Emilia Fox as his gentile female friend Dorota, and Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
A story of one man's quest for survival, among the cruel genocide of millions.

I watched this 3 or 4 years back, but just noticed some poor reviews so had to up the average with my own. Just a superb, moving, lovely, terifying, human, appaling, tragic and downright entertaining movie.
Yes, if mixed emotions and exhaustion turn you on get it, watch it and keep watching it forever. Polanski's finest moment without a doubt.

And watch the average rating fall!! This is the first review i've ever done, I felt inspired, becuase although this isn't an appaling movie, it certainly isn't amazing...Shindler's list was amazing, and this is nowhere near that calibre, in my opinion. Sorry this reviews gonna be a bit of a spoiler in terms of plot if you haven't seen it but I want to say catagorically why I didn't like it to prove I have a point. Adrian Brody is alright as Wladyslaw Szpilman the jewish pianist, but nothing too compelling, at first, when flirting with his beautiful (married) singer friend, he even comes across as belligerent. In some ways I found it hard to empathise with the characters, not becuase I don't acknowledge the hideous plight of those times, or because I am anti-semitic or anything, but becuase alot of the dialogue and relationships between them seemed vacuous and unreal. There seemed to be little empathetic linking between the characters, I could not picture Brody's family as a family, there were some terrible lines that exaggerated this for me:

Szpilman: That's not funny
Hienrich (his brother): Well you know what's funny. You're funny...with you're ridiculous tie..
Szpilman: Wh..What are you talking about my tie for?! what does my tie have to do with anything?...I need it for my work
Hienrich: Yes, you're work, playing for the parisites in the Ghetto..

WTF? has the dude never seen a tie before?? Plenty of contrived links like this make the dialogue sound flimsy. Hienrich's character is particularly insufferable, his righteous indignation angle being played far too strongly...He provides for the whole family for God's sake!It just wouldn't happen. Many of the characters seem poorly and caricaturely interpreted. There is little action in the play, most of the second half involved Brody hiding from place to place looking bedraggled, this is less heart-rendering as in say "Castaway" than it is dull..also, he never really plays piano that much, there's a few times he mimes playing it in his deprivation, but I wanted more of this, to show his last link with his past life and sanity. Thomas Kretschmann who plays the German soldier who sympathises with Brody's character is pictured on the front of the DVD but only come in in the last fifteen minutes. There is no build up of relationship between the characters, again it is hard to believe, all we have seen from the German soldiers is horrific violence from the start, to have a character so quickly contrast this image, yes it could happen, but for the purposes of film it doesn't work, you need something to mark the transition. I know I should be balanced and say some good points, but I really don't have much to say...this genre is a hard one to tackle, will be hashed and rehashed, and this film simply didn't do it justice, it did portray alot of terrible violence but that's probably more catharthic for today's audiences than shocking. All in all not terrible but poorly realised.