I got a postcard from Germany the other day. The photo was of people wearing silly folk costumes against a beautiful background. The message read, "Liebe grüsse und alles gute sowie viel freude mit eurem neuen familien!" While watching The Pianist this morning, that postcard kept coming back to me. It represented the latest variation on perhaps the greatest cognitive dissonance in my life: that between my wonderful, loving German friends and relatives, the culture and language I associate with holidays and early childhood; and the monsters the Germans became under the iron rule of the Nazi party. I've read the books and seen the movies and had the conversations, but the question still remains: how is it possible that my people were once those people?
Consequently, watching THE PIANIST was like getting punched in the face for two and a half hours. The movie follows an affluent young Jewish man of Warsaw, the titular pianist, as he scrambles to survive the coming, then occupying, then disintegrating German horde (played, incidentally, by actors who look like me and my relatives). We see him assisted and betrayed, in denial and disillusioned, as his world literally crumbles around him. Adrien Brody delivers a star-making performance, fully investing his character with all the humanity he deserves. His oppressors, the Nazis and their collaborators, are also fully realized in their monstrosity. It's a brilliantly made film, perhaps someone with more distance would enjoy the heck out of it. For me, it was agony. I have no desire to see it again.
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