《海上钢琴师》

There is a certain charm in the notion of a man who is born on board an ocean liner and never gets off.

That man’s full name is Danny Boodmann T.D. Lemon 1900. As an infant he was discovered on the luxury liner the Virginian by a man named Boodmann, lying in a lemon box in the year 1900. He is reared* in the engine room, his cradle swaying as the ship rolls, and as an adult plays piano in the ship’s lounge*. So great is his fame that even the great jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton comes on board for a duel*.

The character 1900 is played as an adult by Tim Roth. Night after night he sits at his keyboard, as crews change and ports slip behind the horizon. His best friend is Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince), a trumpet player in the ship’s orchestra, and his story is told through Max’s eyes. It begins almost at the end, when Max finds an old wax recording in an antiques shop and recognizes it as 1900’s love melody to the only woman who almost got him to leave the ship.

The movie was directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, whose “Cinema Paradiso” was much beloved in 1988. Like a lot of European directors, he shot this movie in English.

There is something heroic about a man whose whole life is ruled by the fixed idea that he must not step foot on dry land. There is also something pigheaded and a little goofy* about it. That side of 1900 seems to lurk just out of sight in scenes like the one where he and Jelly Roll pound out tunes in what seems more like a test of speed and volume than musicianship.

Decades come and go. Fashions change. But 1900 remains steadfast, even during the war. Then one day something happens to stir him to his fundament: A woman comes on board. “The Girl” is played by Melanie Thierry as an angelic vision who never pauses on the deck unless she is perfectly framed by a porthole directly in the sight of the moody pianist. It is true love. It must be: It gets him halfway down the gangplank*.

Our protagonist remains the same person that he was in the beginning and never undergoes any defining change.

What holds the story together and helps us steer past the finish line is Tim Roth’s endearing input which, when coupled with Ennio Morricone’s awe-inspiring soundtrack, gives the film its finest moments.(SD-Agencies)