| . |
The Pianist
(Reviewed December 9, 2002)
-
Somehow, this Holocaust-survivor flick manages to fall short by being too dull most of the time and yet too over-the-top the rest. Adrien Brody is a bizarrely unexcitable Polish pianist (think Chance the gardener with an armband) who spends WW2 hiding from and being hidden from the Nazis. How can subject matter that potentially tense and dramatic come off looking like the world's most lethargic game of hide and seek? Ask director Roman Polanski, whose real-life flight from American justice has been equally unexciting. (Haven't we all kind of been expecting an elite unit of the American Sex Police to raid his Parisian pied-a-terre for the last two decades to haul the undeniably talented little child molester back to our fair shores for an extended incarceration? Meanwhile, he blithely goes on making movies without even a backward glance to see if Ashcroft's Asskickers are on his trail. Ah, the carefree joys of France!)
At the other end of the spectrum, occasional outrageous atrocity scenes (feeble old man in wheelchair being tossed over balcony, gun-happy Nazis making ghetto dwellers dance old-West style by firing bullets at their feet, etc.) feel as if they have been inserted in a cynical attempt to keep audiences awake. Things getting a tad too earnest and boring? Shoot a pretty girl in the forehead for meekly asking a perfectly reasonable question!
The movie does have some amazing looking scenes, the most impressive of which is an incredibly realistic exterior shot of the nearly destroyed ghetto. Also, I liked an unexpected development that occurs near the end of the movie, involving a character whose story is even stranger than the pianist's (and possibly even more tragic, in the Shakespearean sense).
Not really a bad movie, just one that doesn't bring a whole lot that's new to this sad "stain on the face of humanity." For a much more artistic, human and compelling storyline on this subject, rent "Sunshine," a largely overlooked masterpiece from a couple of years back.
Back Row Grade: C
(Return to index by closing this window)
|
. |