Probably like many other people, I never saw The Pianist when it was in theatres. I see most movies when they come out on video because it is a little difficult to watch one in a theatre where I am, but honestly I never even heard much about The Pianist for quite a while. I knew that it had been nominated for and won some awards and so forth, but I really did not know anything about it beyond the fact that it had something to do with a Jewish man trying to survive under the Germans during World War II. I decided that I should take a look at it on video and ... Wow. It is rare enough just to find a movie on such an important topic, with such a dramatic story and such a firm moral compass. When the movie is also well-made and beautifully acted, it is an event not to be missed.

The Pianist is based on the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a great pianist and a Jew who was living with his family in Warsaw when the Germans invaded Poland at the beginning of World War II. The story is all the more inspiring in that it is not the story of a hero in the normal sense. This is not to say that the main character does not behave heroically, but he is an ordinary figure in the sense that he is just trying to survive in the hellish circumstances in which he finds himself. I think the fact that the character is ordinary in that sense makes him more accessible to the audience, as he attempts to stay alive while his people and his city are destroyed around him

Adrien Brody makes this movie work in his role as Wladyslaw Szpilman. The whole story centers around Szpilman, so a very good performance from Brody was necessary to hold the movie together, and he delivered marvelously. His performance is mostly quiet but never boring. Brody won Best Actor for this role, and rightly so. He plays the character as if he was born to do it, and does an excellent job of adjusting his manner, way of moving, speech, etc. as the continuing hardships take their toll on Szpilman.

Sometimes it may be difficult to make a movie about any Jewish person in a German-controlled area during World War II without the movie becoming in some sense more about the politics or the history than the people, precisely because the history itself is so striking and so terrible that it can easily overwhelm any lesser story. Fortunately, The Pianist succeeds very well in remaining entirely focused on the personal story it is trying to tell. Larger events are seen, but through the lens of this personal story. This is not strictly speaking a history movie, or a morality play, but an inspiring and touching human story. Furthermore, by remaining centered on the human life it is portraying, the movie also brings a particular kind of realization of the horror of what was done to the Jews at the time. Sometimes the full importance of historical events is more deeply understood through recognizing their effects on specific people in a specific place, rather than looking at a broader historical perspective.

This is a pretty clean movie. There is significant violence, moderate bad language, and, not surprisingly given the setting, there are some very disturbing images, so this is not a movie for children, but there is minimal objectionable content for adults. Unfortunately, many of the most skillfully made movies released in recent years cannot necessarily be watched with a clean conscience even by adults. This is one that can be and should be.

The movie The Pianist is based on a book that told the story of Szpilman, which is also called The Pianist, although it was originally published as Death of a City. Interestingly, this book was banned by the Communists in Poland during their long rule over that country. The movie is surprisingly loyal to the book, but the book is well worth reading as well, since it explains some things that cannot be explained in the movie. I highly recommend this book, and the movie is one of the best and most important movies of recent years.