The Pianist marks filmmaker Roman Polanski's return to Poland--and cinematic genius.

[December 31st, 2002] Although some people are too scared to admit it, films that deal with the atrocities the Jews endured during World War II aren't exactly the sort of movies you want to rush out and see on a regular basis. Of course we should never forget, but a lot of people just don't want to be reminded.

Maybe films like Schindler's List or Sophie's Choice have filled your personal quota of painful images of Jewish suffering, and you feel you've seen all you care to see. If that's the case, I respect your feelings, but consider this: The Pianist, from director Roman Polanski, is one of the most profoundly personal, deeply moving films dealing with the Holocaust of all time. Years from now, it will join the list of cinema's greatest achievements, and as such, it is a film that should not be missed.

Inspired by the life of Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a famed Jewish pianist living in Warsaw, The Pianist reveals the horrors of World War II through Szpilman's eyes. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, there were 360,000 Jews living in Warsaw, including Szpilman and his family. Herded into a ghetto with other Jews, the Szpilman family endured all the horrors and dehumanization the Germans inflicted, culminating in the mass relocation and exterminations at Treblinka. Though his whole family was taken away and killed, Szpilman himself managed to be spared the train ride to the death camps. Instead he spent years hiding within Warsaw's underground, braving starvation and disease. By the time the Russians liberated Poland six years later, Wladyslaw Szpilman was one of about 20 Jews still alive in Warsaw.

The Pianist is the first film Polanski has made in his native Poland in 40 years. As the filmmaker best remembered for such films as Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown, The Pianist stands as one of Polanski's finest achievements. With otherworldly shots of a bombed-out Warsaw, Polanski creates some of the most haunting non-documentary images of war's devastation. As Szpilman stumbles through the rubble of the city, the reality that humankind's follies will always outweigh its triumphs becomes painfully evident.

Adrien Brody gives a phenomenal, assured performance as Szpilman. Neither a hero nor a villain, Brody's Szpilman is more cowardly than brave, and yet through his very ability to survive the constant grip of death, Szpilman emerges more courageous than most people could ever hope to be. The line that separates bravery from cowardice is seldom distinct.

In an era when modern cinema speaks decreasingly to the human condition, The Pianist comes as refreshing respite wrapped in a veil of suffering. But despite all the horror and destruction revealed by Polanski (who as a child witnessed the events firsthand) and screenwriter Ronald Harwood--thrusting before us cautionary reminders not only of things past but, sadly, of things to come--The Pianist emerges as a life-affirming tale of triumph and survival.