(2 of 2)
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: as he watches lovers through a window, a dog licks his hand in a cruel parody of the affection he craves.) The sexual dance with Baines has more roiling complications. The first step is barter, the second is power, then rebellion, adventure, independence, joyful bondage, love, love in the face of death.
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 eye.
It is 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.