The Piano

Ada (Holly Hunter) has been mute since she was six. She travels from Scotland with her daughter (Anna Paquin) and her grand piano to colonial New Zealand, for an arranged marriage. After her husband, a stoic settler (Sam Neill), sells the piano to Baines (Harvey Keitel), Ada and Baines come to a secret agreement. She can win her piano back key by key by playing for him, as he acts out his desire for her. A major hit in Europe, Jane Campion's dark drama is the only Kiwi film to have taken the top award at the Cannes Film Festival. Hunter and Paquin won Oscars, as did the script.

Warning: the third excerpt contains violence.

With its breathtaking visual style and careful attention to sound and movement, the movie provokes contemplation about the ways people communicate — through words, through music, through sex, and, most significantly, through touch.

– Critic Julie Salamon in The Wall Street Journal, 14 December 1993

Key Cast & Crew

Stuart Dryburgh

Cinematographer

Sam Neill

As: Alisdair Stewart

Michael Nyman

Composer

Anna Paquin

As: Flora McGrath

Holly Hunter

As: Ada McGrath

Jane Campion

Director, Writer