Reviews

Opening with a virtuoso and near-wordless sequence, set in May 1948, in which surviving European Jews arrive by boat in Palestine, eight days before the creation of the state of Israel, the provocative and often controversial Gitaï's latest interrogation of his nation's history and challenging contemporary reality focuses on one of its key originating moments. As the passengers look to disembark, they are shot upon by British troops intent on stopping them, and caught up in the retaliatory fire of the Jewish secret army, seeking to aid their arrival. Proceeding to follow the immigrants on their first steps in the 'promised land', Gitaï casts a considered but unflinching eye over the founding conceits of his country. Putting the issue of territory centre-screen, and given undoubted extra resonance by the current situation in the Middle East, it's also telling about British imperial responsibility in the region. However, at its heart is a personal and communal story, of displacement, anticipation, endurance and comradeship, wide in its appeal and generous, while demanding of all sides, in its understanding.

Stephen Frears' latest film is a contemporary and highly original urban story, a thriller with a political edge set amongst London's largely invisible community of illegal immigrants. Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a young Nigerian man who juggles his daytime job as a minicab driver with night-time shifts in a less than salubrious hotel. Okwe is a kind man, and an educated one - he uses his medical training to help his fellow 'illegals'. When he finds a few hours to sleep, these are snatched on the couch of a woman working in the same hotel, the proud and very private Senay (Audrey Tautou), a Turkish asylum seeker. Theirs are insecure and transient lives, with discovery by the authorities a constant threat, and exploitation a given. When Okwe makes a shocking, gruesome discovery in one of the hotel rooms, he stumbles into the shadiest of worlds where everything has its price. Dirty Pretty Things marks a return by Frears to the multicultural modern city as subject, and is as refreshingly radical as My Beautiful Laundrette was in its day. His style of film-making is gritty yet anything but drab, perfectly attuned to a desire to show London in an unfamiliar light. Most of all, what shines through the film is a profound understanding of people, and an empathy for them, as the reality of their lives is revealed with wit and real warmth. Bravery in casting is rewarded in full: Chiwetel Ejiofor is simply outstanding as Okwe, on screen in virtually every scene and given praiseworthy support by Audrey Tautou, Sergi López, Sophie Okonedo and Benedict Wong.

A poignant coming-of-age drama on the surface, Karen Moncrieff's debut is surprisingly tough and unflinching at its core. Newcomer Agnes Bruckner (recently seen in Barbet Schroeder's Murder By Numbers) plays Meg, a sharp but stressed 18-year-old whose time is divided between her studies and looking after her young sister while mother Margaret Colin goes out to work. An aspiring poet whose writing helps her deal with the absence of her father, she's encouraged in her work by tutor and frustrated novelist Mr. Auster (David Strathairn). Having taken Meg under his wing Auster becomes both mentor and father-figure, a relationship which grows more complex as Meg's poetry becomes increasingly personal. A largely unheralded hit at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the film is subtler and certainly less sentimental than its potentially over-earnest pitch - not to mention potentially lethal combo of teenagers and poetry - might suggest. Moncrieff is confident and skilful enough to take the story into unexpected territory without unsettling the delicate poise of her story and its characters. In this she's helped no end by memorable, deeply-felt performances from Brucker and the always-dependable Strathairn, as well as a small but telling turn from Frances Fisher.

Based on a true story, The Pianist recounts the experiences of Wladislaw Szpilman, a brilliant Jewish concert musician in Poland during World War II. Szpilman's extraordinary story of persecution, family tragedy and, ultimately, survival is brilliantly rendered in what is arguably one of Roman Polanski's greatest achievements as a film-maker. The Pianist does not flinch from re-creating the appalling horror of what happened to Polish Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, or avoid their eventual fate in the Nazi concentration camps. Nevertheless, this is not a dramatised documentary or a grim history lesson, instead The Pianist focuses very much on Szpilman's personal journey and what we see and feel is through his eyes. More by luck than good judgement, he becomes a fugitive and escapee in occupied Warsaw, where his terror and isolation are only offset by the help of friends and his memory and belief in the music he has performed. Adrien Brody (Bread and Roses, Summer of Sam) has already received considerable critical acclaim for his mesmerising performance as Szpilman and he is ably abetted by an impressive ensemble cast. British writer, Ronald Harwood, provides a sensitive and measured script; Pawel Edelman's photography provides luminous, unsentimental images and, of course, there is the music which is a major character within the film, setting tones and atmosphere. Above all, though, this is a Roman Polanski film and, considering his own World War II experiences in the Krakow and Warsaw ghettos, this may be his most personal and heartfelt film. Certainly, The Pianist is one of Polanski's most perfectly realised movies and, deservedly, won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival.