Let's face it. The nose is hot.

I finally watched the Pianist last night. I have had it from Netflix for, literally, four months. When I sat down to watch it last week, the disc was flawed, so I had to send it back to get it replaced.

I think I was subconsciously avoiding watching it.

Naw. I was consciously avoiding watching it.

I did find that I kept thinking of that joke :
What's worse than biting into an apple with a worm inside? Biting into an apple with half a worm inside. And what's worse than biting into an apple with half a worm inside? The Holocaust. And what's worse than the Holocast?

Nothing stupid. Nothing is worse than the Holocaust.

It's not much of a joke.

I find holocaust movies and plays particularly difficult for that reason.

Because nothing is worse than the Holocaust.

This movie gets by because it deals with a microcosm within the greater picture rather than the macrocosm of the story (which is why I think Schindler's List also works). And it focuses quite intently on the task at hand: telling Wladyslaw Szpilman's story. It pretty successfully avoids sentiment (so we don't run the risk of a maudlin and cloying experience like Life is Beautiful). I actually enjoyed the sort of removed sense of story-telling.

And the dialogue was so sparse that it made me appreciate the moments exchanged even more. Like when Szpilman tells his sister he wishes he knew her better. What a surprising way to say that, and yet any one of us with siblings knows exactly what he meant.

Not to mention that Adrian Brody is one of the most beautiful men in the movies.

I almost cried for him when I saw him wasted in The Village.