Excellent piece of work
Added 2/22/2010
Remarkable true story of courage and resistance during the terrible days of Nazi reign of terror. This film should be seen by all. I show it in my U.S. history class when we study the Holocaust. It is a great way to help educate students about what happened and how one can survive even the worst of times. Roman Polanski is up there with Spielberg with their great contribution to film and history.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
a note on Polish-Jewish relations
Added 2/21/2010
This is not a review, just an answer to some of the reviews here. The movie is obviously worth watching.
This movie ends in a happy end for Szpilman, but it wasn't a happy end for Poland. After Germans, came the Soviets, and perhaps paradoxically lots of Jews who survived the WW2 in Poland joined the oppression apparatus of the communist regime (cause the Soviets didn't trust the Poles in this role?). A number of show trials followed during which many Home Army officers were tortured and sentenced over absurd charges - this list of victims includes Witold Pilecki, Kazimierz Moczarski, Emil Fieldorf. The communist perpetrators of many of those court crimes were Polish Jews: Helena Wolinska, Julia Brystygier, Salomon Morel, Jozef Swiatlo, Jakub Berman etc. When they finally fell out of favour of the system, most of them emigrated, and what's shamelss and absurd - they started refering to Poland as "the Jew-hating country of Auschwitz and Treblinka", at the same time accepting retirement money from Poland. This is one of the factors that fueled anitsemitic feelings in contemporary Poland.
I also notice one accusation against the Poles that keeps recuring in the reviews: that "Poles didn't want to save their Jews". The answer is that Poles couldn't save themselves. The side effect of all those Holocaust books and movies is that the world forgot that Auschwitz was originally built for Poles, and while Germans started building ghettos for Jews, they either executed Poles on the spot or send them to slave labour. Any ressistance operations were met with unproportional retaliations against the civilian population - for exampe the assasination of SS commander Franz Kutschera, approved and carried out by the Home Army, resulted in the execution of 100 Polish hostages.
The situation under Soviet occupation 1939-1941 was actually worse for Poles than it was for Jews - at least it was Jews who warmly welcomed the Soviets and, most probably under the communist illusions, helped them select families for deportation.
In total, the number of Polish non-Jewish victims of WW2 is comparable to the number of Polish Jewish victims. Those accusations are another factor that fuels antisemitic feelings in Poland, but perhaps this is the intention?
Finally, vote for Applebaum, no joke here, she seems intelligent! That is, vote Sikorski ;)
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
A very moving movie.
Added 2/11/2010
I am always moved by holocaust stories, but some are better told than others. This is a very well performed script based on a true story. It is VERY well done.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Adrian Brody: Total Immersion
Added 1/23/2010
This is not a movie to watch if you want mindless entertainment. It is a gut-wrenching depiction of the most horrible atrocities in human history. Adrian Brody totally immerses himself in the title role of a Polish pianist who somehow managed to survive,against overwhelming odds, the horrors of the Holocaust. If this story doesn't put your problems in perspective,nothing will.
Wanting to turn away from the horrific views of all this brutality, I found myself staring in disbelief at the brutality of the Nazi soldiers "acting under orders." These willful acts of violence display humanity at its absolute worse. Yet, the determination of this young pianist to survive shows the inner strength of the human spirit to overcome. Hopefully none of us will ever be pushed to such limits but this movie makes us aware of the inner strength that lies within us.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Can we go ahead and not interject our very narrow modern political opinions into a historical tale about another government and country, rockygreen? thank you.
This is a great movie about another place in time, concerning a government that was not run by officials who were elected regularly by the people of the country. These citizens had no say in the political process, and could not change things if they didn't like them. And there were no human rights, because the people weren't in charge; they couldn't be electing and re-electing when the leaders didn't suit them. The citizens of this time could not popularly elect, by their own will, a candidate whose main political platform was to fix the insurance fiasco in a democratic country. :)
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Excellent piece of work
Added 2/22/2010
Remarkable true story of courage and resistance during the terrible days of Nazi reign of terror. This film should be seen by all. I show it in my U.S. history class when we study the Holocaust. It is a great way to help educate students about what happened and how one can survive even the worst of times. Roman Polanski is up there with Spielberg with their great contribution to film and history.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
a note on Polish-Jewish relations
Added 2/21/2010
This is not a review, just an answer to some of the reviews here. The movie is obviously worth watching.
This movie ends in a happy end for Szpilman, but it wasn't a happy end for Poland. After Germans, came the Soviets, and perhaps paradoxically lots of Jews who survived the WW2 in Poland joined the oppression apparatus of the communist regime (cause the Soviets didn't trust the Poles in this role?). A number of show trials followed during which many Home Army officers were tortured and sentenced over absurd charges - this list of victims includes Witold Pilecki, Kazimierz Moczarski, Emil Fieldorf. The communist perpetrators of many of those court crimes were Polish Jews: Helena Wolinska, Julia Brystygier, Salomon Morel, Jozef Swiatlo, Jakub Berman etc. When they finally fell out of favour of the system, most of them emigrated, and what's shamelss and absurd - they started refering to Poland as "the Jew-hating country of Auschwitz and Treblinka", at the same time accepting retirement money from Poland. This is one of the factors that fueled anitsemitic feelings in contemporary Poland.
I also notice one accusation against the Poles that keeps recuring in the reviews: that "Poles didn't want to save their Jews". The answer is that Poles couldn't save themselves. The side effect of all those Holocaust books and movies is that the world forgot that Auschwitz was originally built for Poles, and while Germans started building ghettos for Jews, they either executed Poles on the spot or send them to slave labour. Any ressistance operations were met with unproportional retaliations against the civilian population - for exampe the assasination of SS commander Franz Kutschera, approved and carried out by the Home Army, resulted in the execution of 100 Polish hostages.
The situation under Soviet occupation 1939-1941 was actually worse for Poles than it was for Jews - at least it was Jews who warmly welcomed the Soviets and, most probably under the communist illusions, helped them select families for deportation.
In total, the number of Polish non-Jewish victims of WW2 is comparable to the number of Polish Jewish victims. Those accusations are another factor that fuels antisemitic feelings in Poland, but perhaps this is the intention?
Finally, vote for Applebaum, no joke here, she seems intelligent! That is, vote Sikorski ;)
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
A very moving movie.
Added 2/11/2010
I am always moved by holocaust stories, but some are better told than others. This is a very well performed script based on a true story. It is VERY well done.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
