Jane Campion’s “The Piano” does what many truly great films do: It inspires fascinating discussion and provokes mixed reactions. The male friend with whom I saw it back in 1993 and I were so enthralled that we kept our significant others waiting to leave for our respective Christmas vacations because we kept phoning each other to discuss symbolism and interesting themes in the movie. While I continue to absolutely love the film, I also recognize why some viewers have not shared my reaction. Perhaps you have to have at least considered a forbidden love affair or perhaps you have to have found yourself trapped in a relationship where you feel you have lost your voice to appreciate what Campion explores.
The story centers around Ada (Holly Hunter in an Oscar-winning performance) and her daughter, Flora (Anna Paquin–who also won an Oscar for her extraordinary performance). They leave their upper-class home in Scotland after Ada’s father (apparently) arranges her marriage. Ada, who has willed herself not to speak since age 6, expresses herself through her beloved piano.
The true story of who fathered Flora is never revealed in the movie, but the context suggests that she is Ada’s illegimate child born from an illicit affair. The hinted-at story of Flora’s conception provides a key to understanding both why Ada later begins an affair with her New Zealand neighbor Baines (Harvey Keitel) and why she makes a mail-order marriage in the first place. I suspect that Ada’s aging father may have wanted to see her settled–preferably far away so that her unconventional behavior would no longer be a source of social embarassment–and given Ada’s muteness and out-of-wedlock child, her father probably couldn’t find a suitable suitor in mid-Victorian Scotland.
Stewart (Sam Neill) first encounters his future wife on a lonesome gray beach surrounded by her crated belongings. His Maori porters begin carrying many household items up the muddy path to his dreary homestead. But Stewart refuses to bring the piano along, despite Ada’s apparent distress and Flora’s pleas that her mother MUST have her piano.
Ada’s piano, abandoned on the barren New Zealand beach, captures the sense of what 19th century colonial life might have been like for too many women–treasured possessions, the last ties to “civilization” left behind.
Rendered voiceless without her piano, Ada begs Stewart to return for her instrument through notes and more pleas from Flora. Finally she persuades Baines–a colonist whose tattoed face evidences the extent to which he has “gone native” and who is considered less civilized by his neighbors–to guide her back to the beach. Ada comes to life again as she, at last, gets to play. Drawn by her passion for the piano, Baines arranges with Stewart to trade land for the piano. Without consulting his wife, Stewart assures him that Ada will provide lessons too.
During first of these lessons, Ada strikes her own bargain with Baines, whom she still considers a boor: She will trade sexual favors to earn back her piano, one key at a time. Ultimately, her reluctant bargain grows into full-blown love and passion. The dark, brooding tone of “The Piano,” however, suggests that something in this situation will go tragically, and probably violently, wrong.
Campion has filled her movie with haunting piano music (actually played by Hunter) and intriguing imagery. The metaphor of piano as voice and losing and regaining one’s voice, Flora’s role in changing her mother’s fate, the question of whether Ada’s bargain reflects a woman taking control of her life or just being victimized in a different way, and many other complexities make this a movie worth watching again and again and again.
I missed this movie in the theaters 10 years ago, and saw it for the first time purely by chance on HBO recently. I was so enchanted that I watched each of the next three showings in the very same day, and then bought the DVD for my collection. It is one of the most unique, truly deep, thought provoking, awe-inspiring, movies I’ve seen in a while. The drama is almost Biblical, the love story almost Shakespearian in quality (think Othello). I was enraptured by the music, the crashing waves, and the amazing synergy between the players.
And Harvey Keitel – who knew? Those gangster/tough guy roles just don’t even touch this man’s talent. George Baines is intense, tender, passionate, a total jerk – so it would seem – but underneath the gruff exterior lies the heart of a prince. Keitel really puts it all out there, literally and figuratively. It’s a risky role and it works for him.
Holly Hunter was spectacular, as usual, but in this film the fast-talking, high-energy woman you came to know in “Broadcast News” or “Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom” must dig deep. Ada’s silences surpass powerful, she conveys more with her facial expressions than most people say out loud in a lifetime. Speech is clearly an overrated and overused form of communication. Ada’s will is almost a character onto itself. And one can see clearly that no one is more surprised by her emerging emotions and unfolding events than she.
Sam Neill’s character is sad, broken, pathetic, frightening, and your basic worst nightmare all at once. Jealousy is indeed and ugly and and devastating emotion.
I disagree with a few of the other reviewers about Anna Paquin’s character, Flora. Some saw Flora as innocent. Watch closely. She’s diabolical, almost schizophrenic. She has the wide-eyed, innocent visage of a pathological liar. Note the scene with the photograph, the dog under the porch, her conversations with the other women in the village (where you begin to see her turn on her mother as she realizes that she’s being replaced as the center of her mother’s universe) and when her final act of betrayal results in horrific violence (don’t think for a second that she didn’t know what she was doing), then note her repentence, and subsequent absolution (the soiled angel wings in the river), and her redemption. Miss Paquin could never be considered a “child star” she’s already shown more maturity than many adults in film today.
And of course, the Piano, the center of it all, Ada’s voice, the music in this movie is so moving and expressive, so perfect for each scene. My next purchase is the soundtrack.
In sum, heart-achingly beautiful, devastatingly real and dream-like all at once. I highly recommend.
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