"I remembered a moment perfectly well in Warsaw before we went back to Krakow. I was with my father on this street and we saw the Germans marching, impeccable in their uniforms. And my father squeezed my hand and said, 'mother fuckers, mother fuckers.' And that's how I recreated that scene. And the scene where the father is slapped. One day my father came home and his ear was bleeding and he told us that there was a German officer who stopped him and said, "Why didn't you bow?" and hit him on the head. Some silly people say, "Why didn't Jews rebel?" Well, they did rebel, but it doesn't happen like it happens in the movies. Things happen gradually and you always think that it won't be worse."
The ruined city was not CGI but some deserted Soviet Barracks near Berlin that production designer Allan Starski was allowed to destroy. Pawel Eddelman shot it, Herve de Luze edited. Polanski deliberately shoots at arm's length, without cinematic flourishes, so it's more like you're there. The resistance attack on the police station for example is hot entirely from the point of view of the upstairs apartment, the ghettu uprising seen again just from this point of view. It's very effective.
Polanski himself escaped from the Krakow ghetto - his mother went to Auschwitz, his father survived. He's wanted to make a film about this period and saw Wladyslaw Szpilman's autobiography was a way into it. Ronald Harwood is credited for the script but was quoted as saying that Polanski had contributed many ideas and bits from his own experiences. Some if it's quite hallucinatory - the solder making the Jewish citizens dance, the boy crawling through the wall. But the cruelty of the Nazis / Poles and the depiction of the Warsaw ghetto are horribly good.
And the moment when he meets the German officer, played by Thomas Kretschmann who saves his life, is so beautiful. (Though he's later almost shot as he's wearing a German overcoat - a great touch.)
Adrien Brody's great as Szpilman. With Emilia Fox, Ed Stoppard, Maureen Lipman, Frank Finaly, Jessica Kate Meyer, Ruth Platt.
Won the Cannes Palm D'Or, Oscars for Brodie, Polanski and Harwood, BAFTAs for Film and Polanksi. Edelman nominated by both.
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| But he's not allowed to make a noise... |
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