The Piano
classified 15Please note: This was screened in June 2018
Jane Campion became the first female director to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes 25 years ago for this, her extraordinary, triumphant masterpiece (now gloriously restored) about a woman's rebellion in a newly colonised, Victorian-era New Zealand.
Holly Hunter gives a majestic silent performance as Ada McGrath, the Scotswoman and talented pianist who is newly arrived with her strong-willed young daughter (Anna Paquin) in the New Zealand wilderness. Her husband to be, in a marriage arranged by her father, refuses to transport her beloved piano to his home, and sells it to his overseer (Harvey Keitel). He agrees to return the piano - in exchange for lessons that gradually become a series of erotically charged encounters. As the story unfolds like a Greek tragedy, all of their long-suppressed emotions come to the fore...