THE PIANO
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: I may stand alone on this one, but for
me THE PIANO is an unbelievable and over-wrought melodrama.
Keitel is at least able to put in a good performance, but as
talented as Hunter is, even she cannot make the bizarre Ada
believable. The production values are good, but the writing
of this pot-boiler strikes me as being on a par with that of
MANDINGO. Rating -1 (-4 to +4).
Do not trust me on this one. I am not someone who gets a whole lot out of stories of people who do strange illogical things in the heat of passion. I tend to find these tales comic at just the moment that they are trying to be the most serious. I have this nasty tendency to chuckle at D. H. Lawrence stories. But for me, THE PIANO was an incredibly overwrought and pretentious melodrama. When I should have been shuddering I found myself chortling. The critics who are liking this film so much clearly are better able to appreciate this sort of story.
Holly Hunter plays Ada, a woman who has chosen at an early age to remain mute for reasons that even she does not understand. Already we can see that Ada gets caught up in situations where she does not understand her own behavior and motives. Rather than a voice she has come to express herself through music on her piano and through sign language. As the story opens, some time in the 19th Century, she has a daughter of about eight (Ana Paquin) and her father has arranged a marriage between her and a New Zealand settler Stewart (Sam Neill). On her arrival in New Zealand her husband decides that her piano is wrong for life in New Zealand. For practical reasons, though also insensitively, he abandons it on the beach. But without a care for the wishes of his new wife he does not go back for the piano even when he has a chance. Ada goes to a crude neighbor, George Baines (Harvey Keitel) to ask him to rescue the instrument. That he does but convinces Stewart to trade to him the piano for a piece of land. Stewart agrees without even consulting Ada. He knows how much the piano means to her, but after all he is a man and so is insensitive to the wishes of the wife whose affection he is trying to win.
Baines is extremely lonely and he finds seeing and hearing Ada play extremely erotic. He first works a deal for Ada to teach him to play the piano as part of the land agreement. But as a side arrangement he tells Ada she can buy back the piano, a black key at a time if she will give him little sexual favors while she plays. This arrangement sets into motion a melodrama of sex and violence worthy of a drive-in triple feature of exploitation films. Perhaps writer/director Jane Campion has made this film with a modicum more polish, but the material is no less trashy than if the story were set on an Arkansas sawmill.
Keitel, Hunter, and Neill are all good actors but of them only Keitel manages to rise above the material and invest his character with real humanity. At his worst Baines is never far from being a sympathetic character. It is a bit too easy to feel sorry for poor Ada as the powerless victim. But still her character is top-heavy with too many weird facets for even Hunter to make believable. (Are there genuinely people who not only sleepwalk but sleep-piano-play?) Ada brings about the climax of the story of her and Stewart in an enigmatic act of piano mutilation that was disastrously unsuccessful, but which would have been no less a fiasco had it gone as she planned. Somebody would have noticed the effect on the piano soon. In addition the act seemed to involve a note to someone whom she already knew was illiterate.
At least the film is well-photographed, showing both positive and negative aspects of life among the Maori of New Zealand in the last century. That adds what watchable elements the film has. But I cannot help feeling that in years to come, once we are past the initial rush of political sympathy, this film is going to be considered an embarrassment in just the same way BILLY JACK has been. I give this film a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale. For me, this is the most over-rated film of the year. Sorry, I fully expect that there will be many who disagree, but Harvey Keitel and the Emperor are dressed just alike.
Mark R. Leeper
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