Given that the film deals with two possible roads that the life of an artist can take -based on his attitude towards the political environment- the possibilities of a great plot were immense... El pianista has interesting characters and could have built them in a deeper and more consistent way, but instead, they spent too much time mounting a parody in Paris or a "Felliniesque" encounter at a roof in Barcelona. These wasted times didn't allow the main plot to fully develop.
