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SPOILERS
I watched this movie yesterday and can't seem to be able to shake the images off my head. I started crying right there in the beginning of the film, when I heard the first of the Nazist edits, which still concerned a small, "organizational", almost, you know, almost there, almost rational measure - who can and who cannot use the city parks. I laughed nervously at the sadistic meticulousness of the armband design (one inch for this, no more than twelve inches high and so on). It was heartbreaking to hear Wladyslaw Szpilman's brother, in his naivité, saying things like "I'm not wearing this armband". How could they see the magnitude of the machinery they were getting into? 40 minutes into it I was thinking "I don't want to be in this place. I wanna go home and hide".
This is a movie that's so unashamedly beautiful - both visually and structurally - that hurts. The shots of Warsaw burning at night like something out of Dante's inferno; an eerie, melancholic 4-seconds shot of a deserted street covered with leaves, twirling, touched by a soft breeze as Szpilman plays Chopin in the background...
There's so much I want to talk about, but I'll start with something more easy to handle: some favorite screen moments:
- Szpilman's brothers get out of the way and we see him, sitting in the next room, listening to the profiteer who's haggling over the price of his piano. He doesn't look at the scene. He just makes a movement with his hand, that says: "Take it. Just take it".
- The Wehrmacht captain that saves Szpilman's life stands upright after listening him playing Chopin - and unconsciously tidies up, straightening his uniform and correcting his posture. He just recognized the stature of the man standing in front of him.
- Szpilman is playing the piano in the radio station when he sees an old friend, a violinist, that came to see him. He keeps playing, and a smirk forms in his lips. After losing all is family and witnessing all he's witnessed, he's suprised, almost ashamed of how nice his life is turning out to be. It's like he's saying: "Who would believe that? I even met him again. Unbelievable. Unbelievable", and we (well, I did, at least) smirk with him, and shake our heads knowingly.
There's so much more, but I want to hear from you. Anyone seen it? What are your thoughts on this movie? |
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