THE PIANO (1993)

Country: Australia / New Zealand

Genre(s): Drama / Romance

Director: Jane Campion

Cast: Holly Hunter / Harvey Keitel / Anna Paquin

Plot

A mute woman arrives along with her daughter and her piano in New Zealand, where she is to marry a wealthy stranger in an arranged marriage.  When she begins a romance with another man, the various relationships of everyone involved become strained.

What I Liked

Feeling like it was genuinely written in the nineteenth century, “The Piano” has all the dark, mysterious romance of the best British gothic novels, only with a more exotic locale that serves to enhance and beautify that mystery.

Every moment of this film is soaked in mood and strangeness and a lot of that has to do with the script, the cinematography, and the setting.  However, much of it originates in Holly Hunter’s performance as Ada, an extremely hard-headed and passionate woman who, for reasons never overtly explained, has chosen never to speak.  Intelligent, talented, selfish, resentful, loving, and disturbed all at once, Ada is the mesmerizing creature that no one in the film, not even her daughter, can fully understand.  Underlying her story and character exists something of a feminist martyr, a woman smarter and more willful than either of the men who seek to possess her.  Forced into a situation over which she had no control, she battles for her own identity – closely tied to her beloved piano – in a manner that produces destruction and bloodshed.  Hunter gives a complicated character all of the depth needed, making Ada, even surrounded by the wilderness of a gloomy forest, still the most mysterious facet of the film.

Surrounding Hunter is a cast of top flight actors who each give adept performances and flesh out their characters well.  Harvey Keitel is both masculine and fragile as Englishman-gone-native Baines.  Sam Neill is Keitel’s foil as the entitled and clueless Mr. Stewart.  And a very young Anna Paquin holds her own with this all-star cast as Ada’s mischievous and naïve daughter.

Written and directed by Jane Campion, “The Piano” has all the sweeping grandeur of a well-done period romance, yet each scene carries with it a certain discomfort and strangeness that sets it apart from the rest.  This is a film about a woman trapped and ultimately punished by her own nature, not because she does not speak, but because the rest of the world refuses to listen.

What I Disliked

*spoiler alert*

Others are free to disagree, of course, but Campion might have overdone it with the feminist messages in her film.  There were times where I felt like I was being preached to, rather than being told a story.  Ada’s refusal to let herself disappear into the role men have carved out for her is heroic indeed and the fact that nobody around her, even other women, seem to understand her struggle makes her situation even more tragic.  Still, I found Ada to be so belligerently selfish at times that I couldn’t help but feel for the other people whose emotions she completely disregarded in pursuit of her own desires.  Here she is not heroic, but instead the thoughtless catalyst for a great deal of heartache for others, including her daughter, and even herself.

Actually, given the feminist messages and the overall tragic feel of the story, I was genuinely surprised at the relatively happy ending of it all.  The scene where Ada very nearly ends her life with a very poetic suicide attempt is followed almost immediately by a “happily ever after” conclusion that, while romantic and well executed, feels a bit forced and out of place with the rest of the film’s mood.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert*

Many will find “The Piano” decidedly lacking in action.  Everything is slow movements, hard-eyed stares, piano playing, and panoramic views of the setting.  That is until the film’s climax, when one particularly cruel act of violence serves as a kind of breaking point for all of the resentment and repression that preceded it.

The moment takes place in a series of only a few seconds but is so shocking the viewer might find themselves questing if they really witnessed it.  Even the three characters involved are all stunned by the sheer savagery of it.  Hunter’s understated performance here is balletic in movement and heartbreaking in soulfulness.  Most importantly, the scene shows the lack of purpose involved in violence.  Nothing gets solved and everyone involved suffers because of it.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5