The beginning of the end of complete male dominance is The Piano’s allegorical centerpiece, adjacent to a number of themes surrounding the blue image of a mute woman accompanied by her angelic progeny and beloved piano while briefly stranded on a roaring, primeval New Zealand beach. The composition is starkly beautiful, embodying the nature of the female identity and foreshadowing the maturation of both sexual awakenings and status, particularly with the film’s contextual objects. The film is idiosyncratic in this aspect of the female liberation, which is appropriate considering the positively Byzantine nature of the sex and its modus operandi. That it teeters with woman’s not-usually-seen foray on sexual exploration may explain the film’s dissonance from the elegantly commonplace and reserved presentation of this era’s women. The anthropology of female empowerment is gorgeously mounted here as well as in the development of Ada’s (Holly Hunter) stubbornness as a mute and a musician, her sexual deviation in a reverse fashion of the period’s expectations and mores.

Initially, the most distinguishing fact about The Piano in comparison to other period pieces is the isolation from the pompous and frilly upper crust societies that are so delightfully doted on in other works depicting this period, which are so very absent in these New Zealand jungles. Second is Jane Campion’s use of wide-angle shots, which paint a slightly surreal portrait of juxtaposition with the clashing of cultures and elements. The dismal tableau employs the presence of awkwardly adorned men and women of a more “civilized” Europe to go mucking through the encrusted earth that’s so ruggedly unfit for their opulent attire. The asymmetrical facets of the juxtaposition are reflected in both the images and the characters’ motives and demeanors, the juxtapositions intertwined with intricate parallels.

Ada was a Scottish woman who became mute at the age of six. I don’t think it was so much a choice as it was because of a psychological affliction that overtook her after an incident with her family. She fell in love with her slightly older piano teacher and gave birth to her daughter Flora (Anna Paquin) out of wedlock and was abandoned by the man. Ada is then arranged to marry Stewart (Sam Neill), a European living in the Maori populated jungles of New Zealand, through her father. The two are delivered. Arriving there Stewart sees that Ada is a rather obstinate woman whose joy is playing her piano, which has fallen into the hands of neighbor George Baines (Harvey Keitel) because Stewart doesn’t want it. Baines requests Ada give him lessons and a heated affair ensues.

Thematic evidence elucidating its focal point of female independence is exhibited in a number of scenes, the first involving the aforementioned scene in which Ada waits on the beach with Flora along with their strewn luggage, among them the piano. Ada longs to play her piano and fingers it slightly through its protective wooden packaging. In many ways the piano is her voice, her method of communication, a crutch translator for her baleful muteness and an oblong symbol of her subtly spoken reluctance to be married off to the decent if inexperienced and distant Stewart. The scene, composed of various long shots and tight shots (occasionally exemplifying Campion’s penchant for unusual, formalistic shots but is restrained enough to remain acquiescent with the gentler time frame), is representative of the isolation and helplessness that muted the female position since nearly the commencement of time. This is the beginning of the feminine dissidence; though still biddable to the male dominance is Ada’s compulsory behavior, as she wouldn’t be sitting on the beach if it wasn’t.

The second scene is the first of two erotic in which Ada confronts Baines, over the sensual tension that’s occurred between the two during “piano lessons.” It begins with anger; in Baines’s irritation with what he thinks is Ada’s aversion, and then Ada’s fury over his rejection of her new found adoration provokes her to flail at him and eventually it culminates at a passionate embrace. Provocative with a sense of forbidden titillation and infidelity, the scene increases the woman’s liberating status and initiates the sexual exploration of the masculine entity by the feminine entity. Ada’s marriage to Stewart exudes such a cold and remote aura that when she does cheat on him with Baines it hardly feels like infidelity or unethical irresponsibility. Rather the act evokes the long overdue sexual development of a repressed passion and begins Ada’s process of estrogenic maturation. Other scenes analogous to this one, such as when Baines falls in love with Ada on the beach as she plays the piano, also allude to the prophecy that this discomfited marriage will undoubtedly fail.

The next scene involves Ada’s later sexual play with Stewart, which comes about when her husband temporarily confines her and Flora to their cabin to keep them from Baines after he’s discovered the illicitness. The warmly lit shots employ Ada to playfully discover Stewart’s anatomy, particularly the lower region, as he lies in bed while the shot lingers exposing the man to appear quite vulnerable. And he quickly pulls up the sheets to hide away from her forever. The scene functions as canny and as miserable, the revelation of some masculine inabilities and a tragedy that some men are simply lone, desperate, possessive creatures. It reinforces Ada’s odyssey and right to infidelity, for it becomes quite apparent that nothing in the relationship is proper or congenial, particularly if the husband locks his wife and stepdaughter in the house, and refuses to be intimate.

Redemption and freedom is finally attained in Ada’s attempt at death. Freely submitting to death, in quintessential Christ-like fashion, is more of a test than a requirement in such instances and here it enacts the rebirth of the mother-wife, her resurrection of sorts.

The Piano’s overtones smolder with desire and passion all along jutting juxtapositions that mirror the narrative of the Christ-like protagonist. Obvious juxtapositions are the differences in dress and manner between the Europeans and the Maoris, but its significant portions of lust contiguous to true love that compound Ada’s trajectory and enhance the film’s dual quality. The Christ-like reference differs in volume and magnitude but not by much, as the character of Ada alludes to femininity as a whole, especially as part of a collective order oppressed by the nature of the world.

In some respects The Piano could be the counterpart to Matthew Barney’s idolization of masculinity that’s so imaginatively captured in his five-part, epic art house Cremaster series which discusses maleness in connection to culture, sexuality and mythology. Both empower their respective sexes with an instinctual and resounding awareness for myths and processes: sexual, natural and creative; while their major difference being the goal of each process. The Piano is about this awakening of the repressed female while Cremaster is about the course of the male through time, the celebration of his sometimes ambiguous sexual identity, and the artist and his creations. Though it may not be readily apparent the similarities of their faithfulness to the evolution of gender is astounding. The Piano is slightly more prominent with gender progression in its chronicle, describing the female who’s clearly been of less exposure throughout history.

Technically speaking, The Piano is made with the skilled hands of a filmmaking virtuoso akin to the delicate manner of a piano wunderkind; it’s fragile, reserved and yet utterly provocative, subversive and sweeping. The mise-en-scène is of various degrees in illustrating desolation and isolation with long tracking shots of the beach, which seem to signify the freedom of the outside world, while the interior scenes feel a bit cramped commenting on the awkwardness of the situation. Equally gorgeous in construction is Nyman’s non-diegetic score, majestic and furious like the transformation of the feminine identity.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD