Roman Polanski · 2002 · survival

Roman Polanski's 2002 film, based on Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoir. A celebrated Jewish pianist in Warsaw is stripped of everything as the Nazis herd the city's Jews into the ghetto and then to the death camps. Szpilman escapes deportation and survives alone through the ghetto uprising and the destruction of Warsaw, hiding in ruin after ruin, until a German officer discovers - and spares - him.

1. 1
   Warsaw

   The Polish capital where the pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman lives and performs, until the German occupation begins stripping away the rights, then the freedom, then the lives of the city's Jews.

2. 2
   The Ghetto

   The walled Warsaw Ghetto into which the family is crowded amid starvation and terror, and from the deportation queue of which Szpilman is pulled aside by chance, the only one to escape the trains.

3. 3
   The ruins

   The bombed-out shells of a destroyed Warsaw where Szpilman hides alone through the uprising and its aftermath, scavenging to survive, until a German officer hears him play and lets him live.