The Piano (1993)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Jane Campion

Writer:

Jane Campion (written by)

Release Date:

12 November 1993 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

A mute woman along with her young daughter, and her prized piano, are sent to 1850s New Zealand for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner, and she's soon lusted after by a local worker on the plantation.

Plot Keywords:

Piano | New Zealand | Arranged Marriage | Mute | 1850s

Awards:

Won 3 Oscars. Another 54 wins & 25 nominations

Cast

Holly Hunter	...	Ada McGrath
Harvey Keitel	...	George Baines
Sam Neill	...	Alisdair Stewart
Anna Paquin	...	Flora McGrath
Kerry Walker	...	Aunt Morag
Geneviève Lemon	...	Nessie (as Genevieve Lemon)
Tungia Baker	...	Hira
Ian Mune	...	Reverend
Peter Dennett	...	Head Seaman
Te Whatanui Skipwith	...	Chief Nihe
Pete Smith	...	Hone
Bruce Allpress	...	Blind Piano Tuner
Cliff Curtis	...	Mana
Carla Rupuha	...	Heni - Mission Girl
Mahina Tunui	...	Mere - Mission Girl

Also Known As:

La leçon de piano (France)
Pleasure (Australia) (working title)
The Black Keys (Australia) (working title)
The Piano Lesson (Australia) (original script title)

MPAA:

Rated R for moments of extremely graphic sexuality.

Runtime:

121 min

Country:

Australia | New Zealand | France

Language:

English | British Sign Language | Maori

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:12 (video rating) | Iceland:L | Brazil:16 | Philippines:R-18 | France:U | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Chile:18 | Finland:K-14 | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:III | Netherlands:16 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:M18 | South Korea:18 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | USA:R | Malaysia:(Banned)

Filming Locations:

Auckland, New Zealand

Company:

Australian Film Commission, The

Trivia:

The last movie Nirvana Frontman Kurt Cobain watched before he died.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the boat leaves the island, Ada trails her hand in the water, which is still and calm. On long shots, it is foaming from the action of the oars, and the boat on the water.

Quotes:

Flora: [speaking to Aunt Morag] My mother met my father when she was an opera singer in Luxembourg.
Ada: [signing] That's enough.
Flora: Why?
[pos]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Coupling: Inferno (#1.4)" (2000)

Soundtrack:

Delft Waltz

An insufferably pretentious movie

I absolutely hated this movie. I'm not against art films per se (I loved Bergman's "Wild Strawberries", for example), but this opus came across to me as pretentious feminist claptrap (and no, I'm not anti-feminist). It is never explained why the Holly Hunter character is mute, so I suppose we're to understand that her muteness is a great big metaphor for the silencing of woman in a patriarchal world. She expresses herself on the piano, OK. But the music she plays is New Age treacle; it made me long to hear Rachmaninoff or even Cecile Chaminade (real romantic music, not muzak). The utter brutality of Sam Neill cutting off her finger is totally unprepared for, but in this oh-so-symbolic film we're not supposed to find any sense or coherence on the realistic level, are we? (compare Dante, who works on both levels). By that point in the movie I was so exasperated by Hunter's utterly self-centered character that I wouldn't have cared if Neill had cut off her head! Harvey Keitel's native character is merely absurd when he makes love to the hole in her stocking. But after all, he's the "noble savage" who is so much more sensitive than the plebeian white exploiter of the natives that Neill represents. Since the native women mock Keitel as "old dry-balls," I suppose he's been saving himself for a truly western-style romance with Hunter, like something out of an 18th-century sentimental novel. At the film's end, when Hunter is tempted to follow her precious piano to the bottom of the sea, I was really hoping she would. But, of course, she has to AFFIRM LIFE and struggle back up to the surface of the water. To quote Fenimore Cooper's Chingachgook, "Ugh"!