The piano

Australia/France/New Zealand 1993

Dir: Jane Campion

121 mins

Cast: Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill

Rating: M

The Piano is as peculiar and haunting as any film I've seen.

It tells a story of love and fierce pride, and places it on a bleak New Zealand coast where people live rudely in the rain and mud, struggling to maintain the appearance of the European society they've left behind. It is a story of shyness, repression and loneliness; of a woman who will not speak and a man who cannot listen, and of a willful little girl who causes mischief and pretends she didn't mean to.

... Campion has never made an uninteresting or unchallenging film (her credits include "Sweetie," about a family ruled by a self-destructive sister, and "An Angel at My Table" (the autobiography of writer Janet Frame, wrongly confined for schizophrenia). Her original screenplay for "The Piano" has elements of the Gothic in it, of that Victorian sensibility that masks eroticism with fear, mystery and exotic places. It also gives us a heroine who is a genuine piece of work; Ada is not a victim here, but a woman who reads a situation and responds to it.

... Stuart Dryburgh's cinematography is not simply suited to the story, but enhances it. Look at his cold grays and browns as he paints the desolate coast, and then the warm interiors that glow when they are finally needed. And if you are oddly affected by a key shot just before the end (I will not reveal it), reflect on his strategy of shooting and printing it, not in real time, but by filming at quarter-time and then printing each frame four times, so that the movement takes on a fated, dreamlike quality.

The Piano is a movie people have been talking about ever since it first played at Cannes, last May, and shared the grand prix.

It is one of those rare movies that is not just about a story, or some characters, but about a whole universe of feeling - of how people can be shut off from each other, lonely and afraid, about how help can come from unexpected sources, and about how you'll never know if you never ask.

Roger Ebert

... Stuart Dryburgh’s fine camerawork draws maximum pictorial splendor from the chilly, rainswept settlement in which the reluctant bride finds herself, as well as from bleakly beautiful beach sequences.

Michael Nyman provides a robust score, and the credits note that Holly Hunter played solo piano and also acted as piano coach on the production. The actress gives one of her finest performances, a brave portrayal of a woman who can speak only through her child or her piano.

As the lover, Keitel acquits himself with brilliance, while Sam Neill, in the less showy role of the undemonstrative husband, is also fine. Young Ana Paquin brings plenty of complexity to the role of Fiona, and Kerry Walker and Genevieve Lemon are tops in supporting roles.

Great care was obviously taken on authentic details, and it pays off in a totally convincing milieu. Production design by Andrew McAlpine and costumes by Janet Patterson are major plus factors.

The Piano confirms Campion as a major talent, an uncompromising filmmaker with a very personal and specific vision.

David Stratton, Variety

... Campion's Gothic romance is notable for its performances and Michael Nyman's score. The writer/director offers something more starkly, strangely beautiful than most costume dramas, and the whole film puts a fresh spin on the traditional love story. The characters are stubborn and inward-looking, and it's the refusal to sentimentalise that makes this harsh tale of obsession so moving. Campion never underestimates the power physical obsession exerts over human souls, and, for once, a modern film treats erotic passion honestly.

Time Out