Survival
Perhaps the most important theme in The Pianist is survival. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, we watch as Szpilman and his family do anything and everything they can in order to ensure that they stay alive even just one day longer. Then, after the Szpilman family is sent away to the concentration camps, Wladyslaw must continue on alone, eking out a life any way he can, with the help of both trusted friends and unexpected allies.
The structure of the narrative follows the structure of Szpilman's survival, as he moves from hideout to hideout, scrapes together paltry meals, and manages to stay out of harm's way. The impact of the ending of the film comes from the fact that we the viewer have seen all of the atrocities that Szpilman has survived, and are witnessing his return to society.
Endurance
The length of time that Wladyslaw must endure hiding from the Nazis before there is even any hope of being rescued is substantial. Thus, a major theme of the film is not only survival, but the patience and endurance that Szpilman must exhibit in order to survive. He spends years and years of his life in hiding, waiting for the proper moment to emerge into the world. He must exhibit a startling amount of endurance and resilience just to keep going over such a long period of time.
Dehumanization
As the Nazis come to power in Poland, we see how the regime gradually dehumanizes Jewish people in the city, first by forcing them to identify themselves with armbands, then by pushing them into a ghetto with substandard conditions, then by sending them away to concentration camps. A great deal of the narrative concerns the ways that the Nazis dehumanized the Jews as a way of justifying their overarching project of extermination and genocide. What began as disrespect for the humanity of an entire race became a mass program to exterminate that race, and the film explicitly shows the ways that ethnic cleansing is founded on a project of dehumanization.
Isolation
Another central theme in the film is isolation. Szpilman spends a great deal of the film completely cut off from other people. First, his family gets isolated from the wider city of Warsaw when they are sent to the ghetto. This separation along ethnic lines is the first isolation that he must endure. Then, his family gets sent to the camps and he must figure out how to survive on his own when he goes out into the city by himself. For the rest of the film, he spends most of his time in near-constant isolation, waiting out the conflict in silence. He is completely separated from his family, friends, and loved ones, just another horrible effect of the dehumanizing Nazi regime.
Help
While Szpilman is alone for much of the film, he is also reliant on others for help. He must figure out a great deal of challenges on his own, but he also accepts help from some trusted allies. First, he gets help from his friends Janina and Andrzej, then from Dorota and her husband, and finally from the unlikely ally, Captain Hosenfeld. Each of these helpers do their best to make sure that Szpilman stays alive, and thus we see that, even in spite of the worst of conditions and tragedies, there are glimmers of light and hope that emerge.
Music
While Szpilman must spend much of the film focusing on the more pressing concerns of survival, his main concern in life is music. As a classical pianist, he is passionate about the expressive capacities of music and his ability to move people through song. He maintains his love for music even in the darkest of times, imagining the pieces he would play if he were not in hiding. Eventually, it is his musicianship that convinces the Nazi soldier Hosenfeld to spare his life and help him survive. Thus, the film positions music as a connective force, something that can cut across political barriers and unite humanity even in the darkest of times.
Tragedy
The film, as much as it is about the triumph of the human spirit in times of adversity, is also about adversity itself. Throughout, we see characters deal with unthinkable tragedies, from the loss of home, to ethnic bigotry, to the brutal murder of loved ones. Szpilman must keep going and find a way to survive, but he also lives with the weight of all of the tragedies that befall him. At several points in the film, we see his sober, expressionless face contorting into inconsolable sobbing, a representation of the pain he has been through on his journey.
