I’ll be rewatching the film and updating my thoughts. I was too absorbed with the telling to intellectualise it much. Will be updated this week with notes on story structure.

The pianist tells the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a famous Polish Pianist, and his story of survival during the war. I wont lie, this is a painful watch. The first third of this film is about our protagonists family, and the ways in which they must adapt to life in the Warsaw Ghetto. The ghetto sequences are beautifully crafted and excruciating to watch. It becomes particularly traumatic once the liquidation of the camp occurs. As the film continues it becomes a singular journey of survival as seen through Wladyslaw eyes, and often only in glimpses out of his apartment window. There isn’t much I can say about this film at the moment, other than it is a magnificent examination of the psychological torture war has on the soul. I cannot recommend it enough.