“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.”
You can read the full column here.
Jon Paul Roberts 