Review 519: The Piano

The Piano is like a poem set to music: a lot of beautifully crafted scenes set to beautifully composed music and a deep emotional resonance.

During the mid-19th century Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter) is a psychologically mute woman who along with her strong-willed, pre-adolescent daughter Flora (Anna Paquin)
from Scotland to an arranged marriage and a new life in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater town on the west coast of New Zealand.
Ada takes an immediate dislike to her new husband, Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill), when he refuses to transport her beloved piano to their new home. George Baines (Harvey Keitel), a neighbouring settler offers salvation in buying the piano and then offering Ada access to it as his tutor.
The lessons become a series of increasingly charged sexual encounters and pent-up emotions of rage and desire soon rise to the fore...

Writer/director Jane Campion's direction is sensitive, the cinematography is gorgeous and captures the beauty and the loneliness of New Zealand in the mid-19th century. The scenery is spectacular, the costumes are appropriately rugged, the score by Michael Nyman is beautifully lush, the locations that this film takes place in are just extraordinary

Holly Hunter is simply a marvel in this film, mainly having to convey a lot whilst saying very little.

Harvey Keitel, in a role the casts him against type, is  playing George Baines.

Sam Neill is a right bastard in this film playing Alisdair Stewart.

Anna Paquin is a true find playing Ada's daughter Flora

 

5/5.

 

The Anonymous Critic.