“Play Something” – The Pianist (2002)
Any movie about the holocaust is going to strike some chords, but when it came to picking a moment out of Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, instead of choosing one of the many scenes depicting the inhumane malevolence of the genocide, another moment came to mind…
When we meet Wladek (Adrien Brody), a Jewish pianist, the Polish Army had been squandered by German forces and invasion had already begun. He quickly goes from a wealthy and successful piano player to a victim of the Holocaust as the Jewish community of Warsaw is thrown into a ghetto. Wladek experiences incredible dread at the hands of the Nazis and is subjected to the harsh conditions with no exceptions. Towards the end of the film, Wladek is forced back into the ghetto, which is now abandoned, and takes refuge in the forlorn community.
One night, a Nazi officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfield (Thomas Kretschmann), finds him, and allows Wladek to put on a performance with the dust-covered piano in the foyer. It’s the first time Wladek has played for years, and it’s so touching that Hosenfield decides to help him survive.
This scene shows how far the unrestrained power of mercy can go. Wladek is treated as a human for the first time since the beginning of the film, and the sheer, intangible skill he demonstrates on the piano, one that years without practice could not alter, is what ends up saving his life. The emotional ferocity of the piece itself ties into the effect of the scene as a whole, and perfectly wraps up one man’s torture, as well as the story.