The Pianist

I would say that overall I enjoyed this movie.  I found it a little confusing and hard to follow at times, especially during the beginning.  I was confused by the characters, who was who, and how everyone in the family was related.  I didn't know any of the character's names.  But I thought that the story was incredible.  I always find stories about the holocaust and surviving amazing.  They are so inspiring to me.  They are filled with so much horror and despair, but yet, throughout it all, there's always that glimmer of hope, that will to live, to make it to the end, to make it through all the horror that is going on around you.  To be strong enough to make it through, and come out on the other side a new person.  For the millions and millions of people that died in the holocaust, there are also so many incredible and beautiful stories to be told about people who survived it.  This was definitely one of those stories.  This movie greatly impacted me and my thinking.

I imagine that, or at least I have to imagine that, not all of the Nazis were horribly awful people.  Yes, most of them did horrific things, but some of them did not; some of them did not want to be like that.  Some of them still had a heart and a soul, and a conscience, such as Hosenfeld.  He was still another human, just like Szpilman.  Another man.  He wasn't totally and completely corrupted by the Nazi mindset.  He could still see Jews for the people that they were truly, like a pianist, instead of defining them and stereotyping them by their religion.  Hosenfeld was one of the few good ones that still existed during this time period.  He saw the desperation in Szpilman, and he saw how magical his piano playing was, and for a moment while Szpilman was playing, he was in control.  Hosenfeld sat listening, transformed by this Jew, and for a few minutes the world that they lived in around them didn't matter.

I don't think that Szpilman had a choice in trusting Hosenfeld.  He had been found out, and if Hosenfeld had really wanted to kill him, he would have done it right away.  There was no point in waiting.  But Hosenfeld asked him to play the piano, and sat there looking at him just as a normal man. Not as a Nazi looking at a Jew, but as an amazed spectator in the presence of a great musician.  I think that after Szpilman got to play the piano after so long again, he was content.  If he was going to die, at least he'd got it in one last time.  If Hosenfeld wanted to kill him, he would have.  Szpilman had no choice but to trust him, and just hope, as it turned out to be, that Hosenfeld truly was one of the good ones.