The Piano Review
by Jon A Webb (webb+ AT cmu DOT edu)December 5th, 1993
THE PIANO
A film review by Jon A. Webb
Copyright 1993 Jon A. Webb
THE PIANO is one of perhaps two films I've seen lately (the other being THE SECRET GARDEN) which are really original, and which show something deep and interesting about human nature.
THE PIANO has Holly Hunter as an unmarried Scottish mother who is married by contract to a New Zealand settler, played by Sam Neill. Hunter is mute, and achieves self-expression through her piano, which she takes on the voyage.
Hunter is incredibly strong-willed; even she cannot understand where her will comes from. She is tamed, gradually, by Harvey Keitel, a wild man associate of Neill's who has adopted some of the Maori ways.
It is the romance of Hunter and Keitel that forms the basis of the film, and also serves as the rock on which the film's sexual commentary stands. This movie is mainly about sex, in the sense that it is sex that stands between men and women, and draws them together, and sex that divides us as individuals, and draws us together.
This is the only film I can remember seeing which has sexual relations as a main theme, and which is not also boring (e.g., HENRY AND JUNE, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING.)
All of the acting in the movie is good, including the little girl who plays Hunter's daughter, but Holly Hunter's performance is one of the most remarkable I have ever seen. She never says a word, except in voiceovers, and yet she manages to convey a character as clearly as any actress has. She is really remarkable. She should certainly be nominated for an Academy Award on the basis of this performance.
Susan Campion's direction is also excellent. Watching these people, one is struck over and over with recognition of similar events in one's own life. Campion keeps any one of these characters from being stereotyped (I especially appreciated this with Neill's character, who could easily have been cast as a greedy, insensitive lout).
The screenplay is filled with remarkable images. For example, the hoop skirt tent, Hunter being carried in through the surf, the wedding photograph, Neill's ambiguous viewing of Keitel and Hunter.
-- J
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