Friday, July 29, 2011

In "The Pianist" by Roman Polanski how is the main theme of man's inhumanity toward man/ human brutality conveyed? Please provide examples and...

I think that one of the earliest moments in the film where
we can see the brutality of the Holocaust in evidence was a simple moment when Szpilman
is walking alongside one of the many walls in Warsaw, he sees a small hole where a child
is dragged through it.  He tries to help the child through, but it is too late.  The
camerawork is brilliant because we suddenly hear and see a child, like Szpilman, but
then we don't know what happens to the child.  We are left with this haunting image of a
child trapped underneath a wall, struggling.  We don't know if the child is struggling
to get inside the wall or get outside of it.  We only know there is a child and there is
struggle.  It's so quick, so instantaneous, but so resonant in our minds that we have
little to go on afterwards, but our memory.  It is a moment that shows the inhumanity in
the Holocaust.  It is so present, and yet, so fleeting.  Its permanent residence in our
mind is what makes the image so haunting.

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