The Piano

MOVIE #1,945 • SCORE 10/10 • 09.04.24
SERIES: JANE CAMPION DIRECTOR FOCUS

I was perusing the Wiki for this before I watched and stumbled upon the Ebert take: he loved the film (4 STARS) but called it “peculiar” and I was like, yeah right, classic Ebert — he wouldn’t know real weird if it fell on his head. But the thing is, The Piano IS a peculiar movie. It’s hard to parse wider themes beyond the very insular story which itself is cloaked in more mystery than meets the eye. Campion actually co-wrote a novelization of the film that unpacks it a little more, but what we have to work with here isn’t much. This is all to the film’s benefit, mind you. The period piece setting is often used to make some more universal point but that doesn’t seem to be the intent in this case. It’s a film that really lures you in, almost unexpectedly. With blasts of action (and one hauntingly violent sequence) intercut with the serene, meditative beauty, it’s likely Campion’s masterwork. I can’t believe I waited this long to watch it.

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The Piano is a 1993 historical drama film written and directed by New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion. It stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin in her first major acting role. The film focuses on a mute Scottish woman who travels to a remote part of New Zealand with her young daughter after her arranged marriage to a frontiersman. The plot has similarities to Jane Mander's 1920 novel, The Story of a New Zealand River, but also substantial differences. Campion has cited the novels Wuthering Heights and The African Queen as inspirations. It was released on May 15, 1993.