Valkyre

The Pianist

Finally got around to seeing this. It was one of the best movies I have seen in quite awhile. About 10 minutes into it, I was crying and didn't stop until the credits rolled. I really didn't know what it was about. Adrian Brody plays a Polish Jew, named Wladyslaw Szpilman, who manages to barely survive the Holocaust by hiding in what's left of the Warsaw Ghetto. The movie begins with him playing the piano for a polish radio show. Not really knowing what the movie was about, I thought that he would survive by playing songs on the piano for the Nazis. Nope. He comes from what appears to be a wealthy Polish family. They are forced from their home into the Warsaw Ghetto, along with all the other Jews. One of the most chilling scenes is watching as the cinderblock wall goes up around the perimeter to keep them in. Then, he and his family are rounded up and forced into boxcars. They are stuffed in like sardines. By a stroke of luck, he is pulled aside and hidden. For the rest of the movie, he moves from one safe house to another, until he ends up in the burned out ghetto. It's painful to watch his desperate searches for anything to eat. I put this right up there with Schindler's List. Some of the scenes are shocking in their violence. But then you realize that it's based on a true story. It makes my stomach turn to see just how cruel mankind can be to someone who is considered a threat, just because they're different.