“Music was his passion. Survival was his masterpiece.”

The Pianist

Directed by Roman Polanski

Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman

Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Wilm Hosenfeld

150mins

Released in 2002

Genre: Biography, Drama, Music, War

Story:

World War two broke out in Europe in September 1939. The first target of the Nazi Germany, Warsaw the capital, Poland, was being attacked intensively by the German Air Force (Luffwaffe). After being bombed day by day, night by night for a whole solid month, Warsaw’s residents suffered from the shortage of water, electricity and food and thus they finally capitulated by the end of the month.

Once the German army marched in Warsaw, the Jews in Warsaw, for a number of 360 thousands was being drove into a restricted area calls Warsaw ghetto. And the main character, Wladyslaw Szpilman, one of the most foremost music composers and concert pianists in Poland, who is a Jew, started his survival, as well as the starting of the story, under the massacre of the Nazi Germany towards the Jews until the beginning of 1945, the retreat of the Nazi Germany from Poland where Wladyslaw was one of the only 20 Jews alive in Warsaw, for the sake of his friends and most surprisingly a German officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.

Review:

Finished watching The Pianist and In my perspective, it ‘s indeed a sad ending. The captain of the German army, who did offer help, died in the camp of the USSR for prisoners of war in 1952 eventually. 1952, 6 solid years after the surrender of the Nazi Germany, he was still in the camp for prisoners of war and he died. Probably he did kill tonnes of innocent people, however he did something good, offering help to Wladyslaw at last. I believe he deserved the forgiveness from God

I discovered something when I was doing some research for the file review just now.

The research states that the German officers in World War two were used to use informal version of "you"(in German of course, it s "du", in short, it’s something like we won’t use when talking to a stranger adult) when talking to the Jews. However, that German captain did use proper formal form when speaking to Wladyslaw (according to the research, it s "sie", I don’t know how to speak German and hence I cant tell the difference. After asking my friend who knows how to speak German, “sie” which means “you” is far polite than using “du”). The research indicated that it ‘s most probably because of that German captain's feeling. In my point of view, I believe it ‘s because he thought Wladyslaw is respectable.