The Piano (1993)
Genre: Drama / Romance
Duration: 121 minuten
Country:
Australia / France / New Zealand
Directed by: Jane Campion
Stars: Holly Hunter, Anna Paquin and Harvey Keitel
IMDb score:
7,5 (102.861)
Releasedate: 18 May 1993
The Piano plot
"Silence affects everyone in the end."
Ada cannot speak and has been living alone with her daughter for some time. She spends hours every day playing her piano. Then she is married to Stewart, a man who lives in New Zealand. Once there with her daughter and piano, Stewart decides to sell it to land seller George. This makes Ada so sad that she feels disgusted for Stewart. George asks her for lessons so she can recoup her piano. But there are also other conditions attached to it. At first she also feels disgusted by him, but gradually she begins an intimate relationship with him.
Actors and actresses
Ada McGrath
George Baines
Alisdair Stewart
Flora McGrath
Mana
Aunt Morag
Reverend
Nessie
Hone
Blind Piano Tuner
Reviews & comments
Ferdydurke
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- 1353 messages
- 854 votes
With a piano at the ankle into the depths, that's about it, I thought I remembered. Floating like a balloon on a string, riveted to the seabed.
But it's different, on closer inspection.
With two cheerful, inner chatter monologues at the beginning and end of her film, Campion crumbles the romantic cliché of the elusive female soul. The lady in question is, first of all, a mystery to herself ("Why haven't I talked since I was six? No idea really"). Then it becomes difficult for others.
Yes, no doubt that "crackedness" will be a reaction to the Victorian corset that women were forced into, but that's not the focus here.
Anyway, it takes the ultra-simple, brutal purposefulness and transparency of a figure like Baines to penetrate that coffin of a hoop skirt. A cliche once more? But Baines' 'brutalness' is worlds away from Stewart's.
For the narrow-minded colonial Stewart, and for the down-to-earth simplicity of the Maoris, the piano remains something incomprehensible; for Baines, actually, but he sees enough, there on the beach, to be able to find the right key. Between the depressing phantasmagoria of the Victorians and the merry thumping on the piano of the Maoris, he represents the best of both worlds.
Campion therefore does not turn this into a square triangle, closed with a strong melodramatic point. Not a 'masculine' climax, but with a 'feminine' touch she tilts the developments towards a happy ending, along the way undeniably touching the erotic and comic touches here and there.
Very nice film, with a starring role by Holly Hunter.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Annalimanada
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- 8 messages
- 17 votes
What a weird movie. In brief:
Piano woman likes local pencil peddler/aggressor.
Terribly annoying cunt daughter reveals their relationship to stepdad she has nothing to do with. Stepfather angry. Chop off finger. Woman leaves with child and pencil guy in a boat. Woman makes suicide attempt. Reconsiders. The end.
Translated from Dutch · View original
BBarbie
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- 12893 messages
- 7675 votes
A single mother (with a disability) is married off to a man she does not know, in a muddy distant land where time seems to stand still. Unhappy, she seeks solace in her piano playing, until her piano is sold to a man who lives alone in the wilderness. That takes an unexpected turn in her life.
A sensitive drama by Jane Campion with strong roles by Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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