|
Rating:  -
The Piano was an amazing movie with great meaning and acting - especially Anna Paquin, Holly Hunter, and Harvey Keitel. I loved the music and the mute aspect. I admit I had to watch this twice to get the meaning and understand what was going on inside the character's heads. The first time I watched it I felt sorry for the husband, but I understood the nuances better the second time around. The setting, aside from the mud, was gorgeous, makes me want to visit New Zealand. And the music is wonderful!
Rating:  -
You try. You try again. You try a third time. Finally, you simply throw up your hands, turn it off, and flip over to a "Law and Order" rerun. I"m aware of the film's reputation, its awards etc. I just simply cannot "get into it". I realize that my entire career is riding on a positive review. But, at least I realize now what Henry Clay said about 170 years ago: "I'd rather be right than President". Or, Clayton Moore to Jay Silverheels in 1949: "You ride into town for supplies,Tonto, while I make camp".
Rating:  -
A piano as metaphor for repressed emotions - an ingenious concept - hit more than a few flat notes.
This movie, with its bleak background and dissonant characters, played out like a song with no melody as the story unfolded, one disturbing chord after another. The setting, a coastal New Zealand town in mid-Victorian era, provided an achromatic backdrop for an equally dreary film.
I did not like this film for a few reasons, one of them being the miscasting of Harvey Keitel in the role of Baines. His appearance in the buff did nothing to convince me otherwise. While I did not consider his nudity repulsive, the scene struck me as having been done for the purpose of shocking the viewer. In lieu of this approach, a less flagrant, more tasteful method of conveying Baines' desire to "lie with" the woman, Ada, might have been devised.
While the overall tenor of the film captured the essence of the screenplay on which it was based, the two main characters lacked any sexual chemistry. Holly Hunter as Ada made no memorable impact on me at all - or about as much of an impression as an inanimate object could possibly render. (It later occurred to me that part of the reason for this could be the fact that I've seen Hunter in too many movies, and I no longer find her believable in any role.)
Despite repressed emotions and unsatiated sexual appetites as the unspoken byline, the film seemed to be missing that mounting sexual crescendo that begs for release and inevitably explodes in a momentous fireball of passion. Instead, Baines and Ada hit fever pitch on the day Ada arrives, unannounced, at Baines' cottage. After going inside, Ada looks around and does not see Baines. Then, from behind the privacy curtain he appears, dissheveled and ill kempt. The viewer watches as he grabs his trousers and puts them quickly on, all the while trying to assume some semblance of dignity. In a clumsy attempt to explain the awkward predicament, Baines, distressed, tells Ada that he thinks of her all the time - indeed, he cannot eat nor sleep as a result of this preoccupation - and, he says, he needs more. In case Ada needs clarification, Baines uses this moment to try his hand at subtlety and gestures toward his male member.
Ada's reaction to Baines' carnal confession is predictable. Her demeanor, complete with the requisite frown and pursed lips, reflects a skittish stoicism that seems to incense Baines. When he suddenly and very definitively orders Ada to leave his house, Ada appears flummoxed. What begins as a simple directive, "Go," escalates to an unequivocal command of, "Get out!" "Get out!" Ada, visibly shaken, proceeds to execute a wordless offensive maneuver onto the object of her frustration. Baines' chest takes a frenzied pummeling that concludes with Ada inexplicably, frantically, clutching Baines and locking lips with him in a pitiful demonstration of requited attraction.
By the time the precious piano is chucked, like so much dead wood, into the water, I couldn't help but wonder how I could have missed the point in the film where Ada had begun to regard the piano with such enmity.
Which is all the more reason Ada ought to have fashioned the piano into a boat and sailed away from that wretched place - all alone and, no doubt, living happily ever after.
Rating: -
I enjoy PERIOD films so, with a writer/director and cast, such as these, I KNEW I would NOT be disappointed. HOWEVER... "THE PIANO" went WAY BEYOND MY EXPECTATIONS! LADIES... THIS FILM IS, to use today's vernacular, the "HOTTEST FILM" I have EVER SEEN! I BELIEVE ONLY another WOMAN will TRULY COMPREHEND when I say, "Several of the scenes with Harvey Keitel and Holly Hunter are BREATHTAKING, ELECTRIFYING, Good Old Fashioned SWOONINGLY HEART-STOPPING, SHOCKINGLY LUSCIOUS, INSIDIOUSLY INTIMATE, and TORRIDLY HOT*HOT*HOT!!!" It takes a while to get to these scenes but they are DEFINITELY WORTH the WAIT!!! You MUST KNOW this film HAD TO BE WRITTEN and DIRECTED BY A WOMAN; Anna Paquin! I believe over half of the film's staff were female as well. In my opinion, NO ONE in the film industry has even gotten CLOSE to doing such a FANTASTIC JOB of LITERALLY CREATING such a MYRIAD of EMOTIONAL and PHYSICAL RESPONSES, NOT ONLY from her ACTORS but ALSO her FEMALE AUDIENCE! "Anna Paquin, Harvey Keitel, Holly Hunter and the rest of the Staff are PHENOMENAL!!!" I have the film, "The Piano", listed in my PERSONAL, "TOP 10 FILMS OF ALL TIMES"! ***I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT ANY WOMAN, who has NOT SEEN "THE PIANO", SEE IT ASAP OTHERWISE, YOU WILL BE MISSING OUT ON ONE OF THE "BEST FILMS EVER MADE"!!!
Rating: -
I had not seen this movie until now. I now see Harvey Keitel and Holly Hunter in a new light. Their performances were amazing. The movie was beautiful and stirring in so many ways. While dream like, there is an great realness to the beautiful love that develops in a non-stereotypical way. I have to own this movie so that I can periodically view this special story.
Television Show
Collectibles
Movie Searches
|
|
|
Search for posters,
art prints, photos, collectables, merchandise, toys, t-shirts
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Join the Nielsen//NetRatings Research Panel and you could win a new car, a dream vacation, a dream home makeover or $50,000 Cash!
TV Guide
Program listings, celebrity profiles, industry
gossip, movie reviews, puzzle.
More
Entertainment
& TV Magazines
This site is
Hosted
by Bluehost
Read
my Bluehost Review
Original Superhero & other designs for t-shirts, bumper
stickers, prints, mugs, and other cool merchandise. |
|
