Word: pianos
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...what does she feel? The viewer must translate the glances and cramped gestures of Ada's own aboriginal language. Sometimes her sideways stare says, "Men! Jeez!" and suggests the wry comedy The Piano could have been if it had not aimed higher. But mostly we see two eyeholes burning through the mask of civility to reveal raging helplessness -- until Ada finds hope in passion. Then she must face the prospects of Flora's betrayal, Stewart's rage, the loss of the piano, the sacrifice of limb and life...
...Berkeley, California. Dewey moved to New York City before Joshua was born and never saw much of his son. Joshua's mother, Renee Shedroff, an amateur dancer, put food on the table by working as a librarian, and had time to encourage her son to experiment with guitar and piano...
Campion has spun a fable as potently romantic as a Bronte tale. But The Piano is also deeply cinematic. It burrows into two essential obsessions of the oldest films: emotion conveyed without words, and the image of a man watching a woman. What is not traditional is that here the women are in charge, as heroine, star and director. The result is that what might have been art-house voyeurism becomes a wise sermon on the various motives for sex. Ada has sex with Stewart out of duty or pity. (The movie sees Stewart's pathos as well...
This is a closet drama, but the closet has a window with a view of the sea. In an early scene Ada comes to the beach and finds her piano in a crate. Opening it, she plays ecstatically; her daughter dances gaily, garlanded in seaweed; and Baines gets a first inkling of the lifeline that art is for Ada. The camera ascends to Campion's favorite bird's-eye view to reveal a huge sea horse magically sculpted from sand and shells. Life, this beautiful image suggests, is a pattern we cannot see, except through the artist's Olympian...
...from this perspective that The Piano, with startling craft and anguish, asks the question, How much does love hurt? The answer is, Too much. And what is love worth? Everything...