The Pianist details
| Formats: | 15 DVD, Blu-ray |
|---|---|
| Starring: | Jessica Kate M, Emilia Fox, Frank Finlay, Thomas Kretschmann, Maureen Lipman, Jessica Kate Meyer, Julia Rayner, Ed Stoppard, Adrien Brody |
| Director: | Roman Polanski |
| Genres: | Drama, World Cinema |
| Studio: | STUDIO CANAL |
| Collections: | American Indie, At War, Based on a True Story, Cannes-tastic!, Decades: 00s, Extremely Quiet and Incredibly Far Away, Girls Vs. Boys, Hidden Gems |
| Name | Discs | |
|---|---|---|
The Pianist |
15 Feature | |
The Pianist - Bonus Features |
15 Bonus |
DVD Information
| Run time: | 2 hours 23 minutes |
|---|---|
| Rental release: | 21 Jul 2003 |
| Main languages: | English |
| Subtitles: | English |
| Hearing impaired subtitles: | English |
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Most helpful review
A Must-Watch film about the horrors of the Holocaust: Polanski and Brody at their best.
By a customer from London , 22 Oct 2003[Highly rated reviewer]
Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) plays piano on a Warsaw radio station when the Nazis move in to occupy the town. Slowly but systematically, he, his family, and the rest of the Jewish population in the city are separated from the rest of Warsaw. To begin with it is marginalisation: forced to give up their possessions and homes and move to a different part of the city. This leads to beatings, torture, and eventually murder and the indiscriminate extermination of the Polish Jews. In a twist of fate, Szpilman is given the opportunity to escape, leaving the rest of his family and friends to be shipped off to concentration camps and certain death.
As lead, Brody is exceptional. His struggle for survival (based largely upon director Polanski's own experiences) is believable, particularly in the daily detail. The execution of the film is fantastic: Polanski's reliance on action rather than dialogue humbles Brody from film hero to the ordinary man Szpilman really was, and the atmosphere of the film is Polanksi at his best.
A sometimes harrowing film, the movie contains frequent scenes that are disturbing. However, the skill with which the enormity of the Holocaust is brought home through one individual's moving yet trivial life, makes this a must-watch.- Was this review helpful to you?
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All reviews
(589)Fantastic film. It'll be in your top 10 forever
By nutsohazelnuts (17 reviews) from Thame , 26 Mar 2013Well this really is a fantastic film Shocking when you know it's real and what the Jews had to endure during the war This film is up there with shindlers list One to watch and watch again and again- Was this review helpful to you?
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What a gripping tale
By Gray2 (198 reviews) , 20 Mar 2013My concerns when this DVD arrived were that it would be too long, and too serious. After all, it was entertainment I was looking for. Needn't have worried. It didn't seem too long (dates kept appearing on the screen, and we all know when the war ended, so the end of the movie was always in sight!) and it was very suspenseful. A true story of a Jewish guy who survived in Warsaw in WW2 through the help first of other Jews, then of Gentiles, and finally of a Nazi German officer! The fact that he's a pianist seems almost irrelevant till near the end. I was gripped by wanting to know how he'd survive each new challenge, but I was also informed about just how inhumane some people can be - because I guess this film had been well researched - so I feel I've learned a lot from it. A must see!- Was this review helpful to you?
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A sad tragic must see great movie.
By Bobsview (549 reviews) from Gloucestershire , 26 Feb 2013A great must see movie about life in WWII in Warsaw and the holocaust. Grim account of life of a Jew in second world war Warsaw. One of the best WWII films available so don't miss it.- Was this review helpful to you?
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Must-see, should-see, want to see - but it's not entertainment
By Sleat (77 reviews) , 20 Feb 2013[Highly rated reviewer]
Although we all know well the enormity of the holocaust inflicted on the Jews (and the many other dehumanised categories of the Nazi regime), it's amazing how the individual story - whether it's Anne Frank, Schindler's List or so on - reclaims the humanity and makes the scale of the horror so much greater, so much more harrowing, so much more stark. There are some truly harrowing scenes in this story. This is must-see, should-see, but it's not entertainment, and the time should be picked with care. Ultimately there are at least six million stories of the holocaust to be told. But beyond any single individual there are some particular themes here - the story of the Polish ghettos for one, and how art, specifically music here, is one of the key things that makes us human. Can classical piano music be more fundamental to life than food to eat? Clearly, yes.- Was this review helpful to you?
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No subtitles on blu-ray!
By Gimms (2 reviews) , 28 Jan 2013Very good film, but mediocre review given as no subtitles or special features on blu-ray. No excuses, the format can hold more data so should have a number of subtitle options and more special features than the DVD. A fair amount of presumably key dialogue is in german. I see from amazon reviews that this is a known problem, and that the distributor will replace subtitle-less discs sent to them. Hopefully these rental copies can be sent back.- Was this review helpful to you?
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