No film about the Holocaust is without its dissents, as there is always a sizable population concerned about the appropriateness of its depiction. Simon Louvish was quick to note "Schindler's List" as a "Holocaust theme park" -- a sentiment that was voiced by many European critics. Roman Polankski's "The Pianist" is free from such criticism. Polanski has incredible, unfortunate credential for making a Holocaust picture. Having escaped the Krakow Ghetto through a hole in a fence on the day of its liquidation in 1943, Polanski has lived in the wake of history and personal loss. Polanski was originally approached by Steven Spielberg to direct "Schindler's List" but repeatedly declined, stating that he did not want to revisit the experience.

"The Pianist" is not a piece of intellectual discussion, nor a particular interpretation of the Holocaust. It is certainly not a typical Roman Polanski film. It is a completely visceral movie that is inherently dramatic.

Adrien Brody ("Summer of Sam") is wonderfully perceptive and restrained as Polish pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman. Remarkable is his portrayal of Szpilman as not quite in tune with reality. He continues playing Chopin as the Nazis destroy Warsaw. Dorota (Emilia Fox of "Soulkeeper") plays his gentile wife who greatly admires Szpilman's work. They meet at the beginning of the war and quickly engage in a deep and intense friendship.

Soon after the Nazi occupation, Szpilman and his family, along with Warsaw's 400,000 other Jews are herded into the unbelievably cramped ghetto, unaware of what they will find soon ahead of them. Thanks to his reputation, Szpilman gets a job at one of the only remaining restaurants as a pianist and, in the process, is able to help his family survive by obtaining work permits.

Szpilman also has an uneasy relationship with his quick-tempered brother, Henryk (Ed Stoppard), who is as worried about the inevitable suffering ahead as much as he is about his brother's aloofness. Szpilman himself escapes the concentration camps and, with the help of Dorota, finds his way from safe house to safe house while the Nazi's are slowly defeated in the streets below him.

"The Pianist" shows that the Holocaust was a painful and horrific event, but it does so with sensitivity. One of the most devastating scenes of the movie comes when the Szpilmans receive notice that all Jews must move to the narrow confines of the newly established ghetto. Father is noticeably upset, stating that he has heard what the Nazis are planning, and he is sure that every last Jew is going to be murdered. Mother Szpilman responds calmly stating that the Nazis would "never get rid of such an important work force."

"The Pianist" is particularly good at depicting the terrifying blend of arbitrary personal sadism by individual German soldiers and the institutional brutality of the Nazis as a whole. Though it is prolific in its displays of the treacheries of the Holocaust, the film is never reductive. In one of the most heartbreaking scenes, a woman's tin of gruel is dropped on the ground and a desperate, feeble old man immediately stoops to slurp every last morsel off of the gravel.

The movie's only fault is its awkward script by the screenwriter Ronald Harwood ("The Dresser"). The film is gorgeously shot, by Pawel Edelman, in rich dark browns with an edge of sepia, but is otherwise completely devoid of aesthetic treatment. "The Pianist," which was awarded the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year, is a film made with an extreme empathy and humility by an unfairly troubled filmmaker.