The Piano (1993)

There’s a spe­cial sort of thrill that comes from being able to pin­point the moment at which you fall in love with a film, par­tic­u­lar­ly one that’s entrenched in the Film Canon. On this first view­ing of The Piano, the moment arrived as Har­vey Kei­t­el gen­tly thumbed a hole in Hol­ly Hunter’s tights. As Ada McGrath falls for George Baines, I fell for Campion’s melan­choly peri­od dra­ma – not so much for the romance between these two mis­fits, but for the film’s exquis­ite exam­i­na­tion of wom­an­hood and agency. Some 25 years since its ini­tial release, The Piano remains a remark­able and poignant med­i­ta­tion on female pow­er dis­guised as a love sto­ry for the ages.

“Silence affects every­one in the end,” says Ada McGrath in the film’s open­ing mono­logue, reflect­ing on her upcom­ing mar­riage to Alis­dair Stew­art (Sam Neill) as she awaits his arrival. Her mute­ness is described as a ​“dark tal­ent” by her father, but Ada sees her­self dif­fer­ent­ly. ​“I don’t think myself silent. That is because of my piano,” she explains with an affec­tion­ate lilt. Hav­ing being mar­ried off by her father to a man she’s nev­er met, she’s scep­ti­cal of their impend­ing union, but stripped of the abil­i­ty to talk, her sole vocal­i­sa­tion comes in play­ing her beloved piano, or being spo­ken for by her pre­co­cious young daugh­ter (Anna Paquin).

On arrival in New Zealand, Ada is denied her voice when Stew­art refus­es to move her piano into his home, instead leav­ing it on the beach near­by. In deny­ing Ada’s only means of self-expres­sion, Baines inad­ver­tent­ly sets in motion the devel­op­ment of a rela­tion­ship between Ada and her husband’s employ­ee, George Baines (Har­vey Kei­t­el), who buys her beloved piano, and barters with him for lessons from Ada.

At a sur­face lev­el, The Piano plays out as a hushed peri­od romance between Hunter and Kei­t­el, who exchange mean­ing­ful glances and find stolen moments away from the pry­ing eyes of Neill’s impo­tent inter­lop­er. What ele­vates the film to great­ness is Campion’s acute under­stand­ing of female trou­ble, and how wom­an­hood has always strug­gled under the patri­archy. Ada is bought and sold like live­stock, a pret­ty thing to be trad­ed for a piece of land.

Lack­ing dia­logue, save from her open­ing and clos­ing mono­logues, Hunter has to rely on expres­sion through move­ment, and it’s easy to see why her per­for­mance net­ted her a Best Actress Oscar – she cap­tures Ada’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty while avoid­ing mawk­ish­ness. It’s impos­si­ble to not be cap­ti­vat­ed by the cli­mac­tic scene between her and Neill – Campion’s cam­era lingers and lingers on Hunter’s face to cap­ture the pain and betray­al in her eyes, then fol­lows way she stum­bles from his grasp like a wound­ed deer.

Endur­ing, too, is Michael Nyman’s soar­ing score, fea­tur­ing the icon­ic Piano theme ​‘The Heart Asks Plea­sure First’ (Ada’s impas­sioned solos all the more impres­sive for the fact Hunter learnt piano for the film so she could play them her­self). Set against the wild land­scape of New Zealand, Cam­pi­on treats her home­land as a wilder­ness, fram­ing Ada and Flo­ra as small crea­tures against the bleak beach or lush jun­gle – an antipodean imag­in­ing of Wuther­ing Heights’ wily, windy moors. It’s a cliché to say it, but The Piano ben­e­fits from being viewed in the engulf­ing dark of a cin­e­ma screen, where one can be ful­ly immersed in its rugged land­scapes and sur­round­ed by the melod­ic sound of Nyman’s strings and keys in conversation.

And yet The Piano, as beau­ti­ful as it may be, is des­per­ate­ly sad too – it’s this melan­cho­lia which haunts, as Ada’s hap­py end­ing feels some­how like a res­ig­na­tion. She whis­pers, as she imag­ines her­self in a watery grave along­side her beloved piano, ​“It is a weird lul­la­by, and so it is mine. There is a silence where hath been no sound, there is a silence where no sound may be, in the cold grave, under the deep deep sea.” Is death the only true free­dom in The Piano? Sug­gest­ing so feels awful­ly fatal­is­tic, but it is this nag­ging ques­tion – along with the sug­ges­tion that Ada is a crea­ture who does what she does only to sur­vive – that makes Campion’s such a mys­te­ri­ous, unknow­able, beau­ti­ful thing.