Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1150 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-02-05
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 143 minutes

Synopsis
Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Jewish gifted classical pianist living Poland during the Nazi occupation manages to escape deportation to a concentration camp and goes into hiding. For the next few years Wladyslaw eludes capture and lives in the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto.

Customer Reviews

One of the best spent two hours
I started watching the film knowing no more than it was about the holocaust it's a graphic film, that had me literally open mouthed, and a few of the scenes had me crying. As the film went on towards the end I started to feel the plot was a little far fetched and i got quite angry, thinking it was ruining a film wreaked with sadness about the most tragic event of the 20th century. However it wasn't til it finished, jsut before the final credits rolled that i realised that this story of Wladyslaw Spzilman was in fact true life. I was so shocked and absolutely amazed at this extraordinary tale. It really shuns your life into perspective. I don't know if this was the desired effect but the ending made me feel sad for the Nazi soldier.

Fantastic
This film is fantastic. So engrossing and emotional. It is one of the great war films!

Surviving destruction and genocide
The Pianist is the true story of the struggle to survive the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto of Polish Jewish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman.

It tells how he survived against the odds , hiding in various parts of the city , before his life was saved by a German officer , who despised the Nazis brutality and genocide , a true righteous gentile , Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
Unlike many personal holocaust accounts , which are of concentration and death camps , this one is an account of life and death in the Warsaw ghetto.

The movie portrays life and death in the ghetto : the disease , the starvation and the Nazi mass murders of hundreds of thousands of men , women and children. The imagery of the ghetto is brough to life, with heartrending scenes of the Jews being herded into and out of the ghetto and of Nazi brutality. REcreated scenes, will stay with the viewer, like a young woman being shot in the head for asking the Nazi guard where the Nazis are taking them, a mother holding a small boy who is dying of thirst, and begging for water for her child.
A little girl, holding an empty bird cage, and crying because she cannot find her family.
Roman Polanski has showed his flare for directing once again, and brilliant acting by Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman, Emilia Fox as his gentile female friend Dorota, and Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
A story of one man's quest for survival, among the cruel genocide of millions.