“A film like Jane Campion’s The Piano feels like it has always existed somewhere in my consciousness. Just like how I knew that deep water was dangerous and that the dark could contain horrors, I was always sort of aware that this film existed. Perhaps I saw images of Holly Hunter as Ada quite early on, her china-white face framed by her bonnet, her eyes speaking multitudes. Before I saw the film, I couldn’t shake the length of that long beach she stood on in New Zealand, wearing a hoop skirt, left isolated on the shore. When I finally watched it for the first time as a teenager, I was totally mesmerised by it. Its darkness, the way it brooded with so much unsaid, the way it was both erotic and dangerous.”

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You can read the full column here.