Reviews

Anybody who dares to make a French Resistance movie after the runaway success of the TV spoof 'Allo Allo' gets 5 points for bravery, no less.

Unfortunately, bravery is not enough to make a good movie. Even bravery coupled with excellent actors, nice cinematography and an eye for detail is not enough. Any film can be ruined by a poor script and Charlote Gray is no exception.

The whole tale is just so unlikely. The way Charlotte gets 'picked up' by the British Secret Service - the guy making the first approach is such an annoying bore, why on Earth would she accept his invitation for a party instead of throwing his business card in the first available bin? Then, she falls in love with this pilot (how's that for cliché's?) and of course he is shot down on his next mission ('don't worry' he said - naturally). So, she joins the Secret Service (as simple as that) and trains to become an agent in the hope to go to France and find him. Now that is really strange - this training would take months, so why would she expect him to still be at the place he was shot down if and when she ever manages to get there? Wouldn't he likely be back in England, or in a POW camp in Germany? Anyway, training over, she gets sent to France on her first mission. But this is very strange - we don't really get any insight in what this mission actually is. She delivers a couple of radio valves to a French contact, but why these haven't simply been dropped as a parcel is a mystery. Later in the film she acts as intermediary between a locally based English agent and the Resistance. Why do they need to send in another British agent to act as intermediary? Why not let the local agent liaise with the Resistance directly? There seems no rhyme or reason for her being there at all.

At the handover of the valves, her contact is arrested (more mysteries - why does this contact insist to receive the valves when she is about to be arrested? A sure way to torture and death!) and Charlotte has to hide. But does she hide? No, not really - she goes to live with the father of the young Resistance leader under the pretext of working as a housekeeper. And next thing, she happily cycles to town as if there was no risk at all that the initial contact would have told the Gestapo all about her drop! So why is she hiding in the first place? A mystery.

And so it goes on and on - every twist of the plot makes it more unlikely. Why do the Resistance take Charlotte along when they attack a train? Why does the Resistance leader risk his life and his group by standing on the street shouting at the Germans? Why do the Germans kill the Resistance fighters in a trap instead of capturing them for interrogation? How do the Germans know where the young Jewish boys are being hidden? In the end, the whole point of the movie seems to be to paint a love triangle against a backdrop of the French Resistance - wow, we really needed a film like that! The script simply sucks, and the actors don't know what to do with it either. The cinematography is very nice, but then of course it is hard to go wrong when filming in the French countryside.

Five stars for bravery, that's what I promised, so I will stick to that.

If only that policeman had said 'Good Moaning', I would have given it six stars for even more bravery.

The early part of this film is reasonably well made, it takes sufficient time to introduce the characters, set the scene and build up the story - but only until the first major battle. After that it quickly loses its way, and from there on the whole thing becomes more and more implausible and, frankly, ridiculous - the Princess of Wales negotiating with Wallace, and falling in love? Wallace singlehandedly murdering the Scottish nobles? Wallace conquering York, the North's greatest fortress? Come on, please... I don't mind too much if a movie takes liberties with history if it helps the story, but in this case the story itself becomes totally unbelievable, and with that, the film.

The characters become mere caricatures of themselves without any further development, the film becomes repetitive, boring, way too gory, and ends in utter obscenity with the execution scene. Several times during the second half of the film I was on the point of switching it off out of boredom and sheer annoyance. Way too long and insulting to the viewers intelligence. Why do so many people think this is a masterpiece? A mystery...

4 **** out of 10 because of the first hour and some nice views of the Scottish scenery.

I won't repeat what so many others have already said. Yes, this is undoubtedly a moving, shocking and powerful movie of what happened to the Warsaw Jews during World War 2 - a great film by Polanski.

I watched it the other day and something kept nagging at me. Szpilman, the pianist protagonist, reminded me of another film character but I couldn't place him. Then the penny dropped: Szpilman is another Dr. Zhivago.

Both character are essentially outsiders to what happens around them, the momentous events of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, the Warsaw ghetto and the Holocaust. Both are introvert artists who live in a world of their own, relating to most people and events around them in barely more than a superficial, disconnected way. They only make the weakest of efforts to get involved in, and influence, the turmoil of their time. Szpilman appears to be even more of a loner than Zhivago, who at least had the ability to fall in love with Lara. The Pianist is a single man who devotes his life to nothing but his music. His last words to his sister are significant: "I regret not knowing you better." Then, as he escapes destruction through no heroic action of his own, he becomes a total outsider to the violent events of the Ghetto uprising and the final battle for Warsaw. He watches the horrors from the windows in his hideouts, silent, barely reacting. He only comes briefly alive when he finds himself alone with a piano, which he can't play for fear of being discovered - but he plays it anyway, fingers in the air over the keys, hearing the music without making a sound.

When he has almost reached the end of his strength, barely surviving thirst, hunger and exhaustion, he is saved by a humane German soldier who makes him play the piano. As he does so, you see him coming alive through the powerful effect the music has on him. It almost seems as if through all his preceding suffering he has missed his music more than his family and friends who have all been wiped out by the Nazis. This scene now reminds me so much of Zhivago who sits alone in the depth of winter, in his remote house on the steppe, writing poems as this only means of survival.

Eventually, Szpilman is saved by the tides of war, and we see him at the conclusion of the film playing the piano for a large audience in a grand concert hall. Yes, he made it through the Holocaust, and his artistic strength hasn't left him - but what has happened to his humanity after having witnessed so much brutality and suffering? Who is this man who can still find beauty in music? How does he deal with the loss of his entire family and those who helped him survive? We never get an answer to that. And don't get me wrong - it is through no fault of Adrien Brody who fully deserves his Oscar. No, the answer lies in the character of Szpilman himself, someone who, like Zhivago before him, survives the madness of the world by fleeing in himself. In doing so he makes it impossible for us to know him, or even really care. And that may be the weakest element of this otherwise great movie.