SOURCE: LaSalle, Mick. Review of The Pianist, by Roman Polanski. San Francisco Chronicle (3 January 2003): D1.

In the following review, LaSalle observes that the strength of The Pianist lies partly in Polanski's decision to limit the film's perspective to that of one individual, asserting that the film is one of the “great” movies about the Holocaust.

People have a tendency to adapt, make do and look on the bright side. One of the many terrible, unforgettable things about The Pianist, the harrowing new drama from Roman Polanski, is that it shows how that normally healthy impulse worked to seal the doom for hundreds of thousands of innocent people during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

The Holocaust has been the subject of many films. The Pianist is one of the great ones. Polanski eschews the big canvas of Spielberg's Schindler's List and follows the true story of a single individual...