The Piano
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Movie Reviews of The Piano
Movie Review: Wickedly Beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Piano" stars Holly Hunter, Sam Neill, Harvey Keitel, and Anna Paquin. It received several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Its brilliant quality proves that every nomination was deserved. The plot of a mute woman, Ada, whose only form of expression is through her piano was written beautifully. Jane Campion's Oscar winning efforts express her highly creative outlook in film. It combines drama, mystery, and romance. Many twists and turns arise as Ada falls in love with a mysterious man not her husband. The movie's gloomy theme blends perfectly with every event; past, present, or future. It reminds the audience of the danger that certain characters are in, regardless of what they say or do. The cinematography and the editing wonderfully contribute to this effect.The art design proves that the artists researched the European styles of the 1800's. Every detail is flawless. The costumes were equally wonderfully crafted. Every detail on the set contributes to the movie plot, adding its necessary theme.
Every actor performs their roles beautifully. Holly Hunter's Best Actress Oscar winning role, Ada, was highly emotional. Only one other performer has won the Oscar for a lead role for playing a mute person(Marlee Matlin, 1986). She never holds back a drop of heart and soul through her character. Her task of expressing her character's emotions through only non-verbal means is highly difficult. She mastered it. This is her best role in her career. Anna Paquin's Best Supporting Actress Oscar winning role, Ada's daughter Flora, is amazing. This made her the second youngest Oscar winner for acting efforts(age 11). No words can describe how amazing and how underrated she is. Her European accent is as flawless as her acting. Harvey Keitel offers his own mystery theme in his Oscar nominated role as Ada's gothic non-husband lover. Sam Neill's role as Ada's wife is brilliant. His character's rage scenes are perfect. All other actors, major or minor, also perform their roles wonderfully.
"The Piano" offers an amazing roller coaster ride, though some scenes may become highly depressing. Those looking for a power drama should watch this movie. This offers high emotions that forces the audience to feel what that characters are feeling. Many viewers will be entertained throughout. Some may have to watch this movie multiple times to fully understand the events thoroughly. Many have watched this ten times, and they continue to discover new, interesting details. "The Piano" will be a classic in the upcoming years.
Movie Review: Not for everyone, but good (and who knew HK could be so hawt?!)
Summary: 5 Stars
It's rare that I give a movie 5 stars, but if there were ever a film to deserve one, it's this one. This film was up against What's Love Got to Do With It and won. Being a woman of color, I say it was deserved. From the moment that Ada and her daughter stepped on the beach, I realized that this Piano wasn't just an object, but an extension of the main protagonist. It was her voice and her way of speaking. Her husbands' unwillingness to try to understand her need for this piano only helped to broaden the wall between them. And on that same beach, this ruffian, Baines, was able to experience Ada in a way that her husband wouldn't allow. THAT was his advantage over Stewart. He was able to feel her music and understood that she was inextricably linked to the piano. How else could he coerse her into making that "bargain"? Why else would she agree to such a thing (and please, let's think beyond the "she's a hussy" thing). Though her husband cut her off from her "voice", it was Baines who reunited her with it...but at a price.
I love the fact that no matter what Baines did, he was never able to control Ada' response to him. Sure, he controlled what she needed most, but she was well aware that she controlled what he needed in return and used it to her advantage (See the recital scene. Served him right. You GO, Ada!). So in the end he caught on, he did the right thing and gave her back her piano...He let her go. And when he did that, SHE then decided what she needed, not by forced submission or coercion, but of her own free will (which can't be suppressed anyway).
I disagree about some people's assertion that Harvey Keitel being "miscast" in this role. Many don't find him attractive or classically handsome, so the fact that Ada falls for this very rough looking man instead of her handsome husband seems to speak volumes to beauty being in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I thought Keitel was extremely masculine and sexy in this movie (and no, not because of the frontal nudity). There was nothing soft or pretty about him. It was all rough and tumble, rugged male sensuality and I loved it. Again, many will dislike this film because of its moral ambiguity or "preposterous" nature. I think that a more clean version will appeal to those of a...Puritanical moral sensibility. I find it refreshing that this movie presented the characters as not being all good or all bad. They are just people, and that is what I relate to.
Movie Review: Love is a mysterious music
Summary: 5 Stars
This film shows how music can become the strongest side of a personality when a woman who cannot talk expresses herself on the keys of a piano : she plays music to live inside herself and to be in harmony with the world and particularly her daughter. Married from a distance by her family to an unknown man, she finds he is absolutely negative about the piano, her piano, that will stay on the beach. But a neighbor will get the piano, let her play, though his attraction and interest is obviously sexual. She will yield to his desire because the piano, the music are bridges between them. This will lead to a drama, a mutilation, a separation, an elopement, the drowning of the piano, the near drowning of the woman, and a better future in spite of a prosthesis to compensate for the mutilation. She has met the man she loves and that love came from her music and her piano. As such the film is rather naive and simple. What makes it a great film is that it is situated in New Zealand, though the woman's family is English. Two other levels of characterization of the husband intervene in this situation. First his gross and unrespectful treatment of the local population, the Maoris. He more or less exploits them, he does not try to speak their language, he does not try to have any contact with them, except when he needs them to work for him. The second element is his conception of his farm : he does not take into account the local resistance at his opening some land for his farm because that land is an ancient and traditional burying area for the local population. He refuses to take that into account and he does what he wants, and only what he wants. In other words he is a born dominator and has not heard of the ecocultural dimension of life : it is true he lives at the beginning of the colonization of New Zealand and his attitude is that of a colonial settler. And moreover he is unable to cope with his wife, to understand her desire and need of her piano, and then to make himself be desired and loved, even in spite of her attempts. It is this slow and precise description of the main characters of the film and their relations to the local population that makes the film interesting, not to speak of the acting which is excellent, and has to be so in those constantly refrained and dominated feelings that are at stake.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Movie Review: ethereal...simply breathtaking!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
warning: watching this movie will put you in a dreamlike and emotionally charged and effected state for hours after you watch it, for me it was days.I have never seen a movie that has had such a profound effect on the people who view it, myself included. It is not the kind of emotional experiance where you cry throughout the movie. It is the kind that makes you gasp and keeps you motionless.
The plot could be seen as a simple love triangle, between the mute woman Ada (Holly Hunter), her husband of an arranged marrage (Sam Neil) and her slightly gruff and seclusive neighbor (Harvey Keitel).
It is much more than that, it is also a story about Ada's love for her Piano. The love for her tool to speak. The way her neighbor George Bains understands this love and her husband does not.
The casting for the movie is perfect. Holly Hunter does not speak, nor does she cry and wail when she is angry or sad. She simply FEELS, and we can easily see what she is feeling without her showing us. Her Academy Award was well deserved.
Anna Paquin, who also recieved an Academy Award for her performance as Ada's mischivous but angleic daughter, is brilliant. Sam Neil's charachter is not as developed as some of the others. But the sadness seen in his eyes makes you wonder what bad things have happened to him in tha past, for you can tell by how easily he gets frusterated with Ada that something else has happened.
Harvey Keitel has played a difficult character, because he makes a very crude offer to Ada concerning how she can get her Piano back. Written on a peice of paper, George Bains would seem like a perverted creep...but Keitel plays his character with warmth, and immediatly you know that Bains knows what he is doing, and you trust him.
The real supporting cast would also have to be the cinematography and the music. Both contribute an intensity to the film that is priceless.
A Tip: watch this movie at night or when you have a whole day off, it will alter your mood for the day.
Movie Review: The Perfect PIANO Piece
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the best movies I have ever seen is Jane Campion's The Piano. Holly Hunter plays a mute mail-to-order bride who, along with her daughter(played by young Anna Paquin), travels to New Zealand to meet her new husband Stewart, played by Sam Neill. Her one love is her Piano, but she must leave it behind, for it was to heavy to get to her new house. Later Stewart trades the piano for some land to a man nearby Baines, played by Harvey Keitel. Ada is to give him lessons. At first she detests the idea, as she has everything since she moves to the island. But Baines makes her an offer that she can't refuse; she can get her beloved piano back. It is then that we watch Ada's soul awaken as she spends time with Baines. Her daughter Flora is like her best friend, but Flora will innocently betray her mother, which will lead to a dramatic climax.Even though Holly Hunter few lines are voice-overs, this is her finest performance ever, winning her the Best Actress Oscar for 1993. Anna Paquin also takes an Oscar for Best Suporting Actress. The film also won an Oscar for Jane Campion's screen play, and was nominated for Best Picture of the year as well as several others. Sam Neill and Harvey Keitel were equally impressive for their roles as well. Michael Nyman's music is beautiful with its lovely saxophone melodies and a piano theme song that Hunter actually plays.
It is perfect in many ways and is a movie that should be in everyones well-rounded and complete video library. It is one of those movies that you will want to watch at night all snug in your bed with some popcorn. If your thinking of buying this movie; do. It is just that good. A+++