This movie is very art-house. The camera loves the beach and the surf. And Holly Hunter. She plays a woman who has suffered such an enourmous shock that she's gone mute. The only voice she has is her piano. A man in New Zealand has sent for her as his wife. She arrives with her piano and young daughter.
Anna Paquin plays the daughter and is quite good. Especially when you consider her age at the time. She shows amazing complexity and depth. And that's important because she is the key figure in the movie. Everything collapses without her giving voice to her mother and eventually attatching herself to her new father.
Harvey Keitel is also quite good. He plays a man who longs for a woman, although none are around that he can have. He makes a bargain for Hunter's piano, and then another one with her to 'buy' back her piano with favors. The gimmick that sells this, is that each favor will be worth a certain number of keys.
When I mentioned this movie at work, I got an expected response, "Is that the one with that guy's penis?". And yes it is. If you ever wanted to see Keitel naked (show of hands?) this is the movie for you. To be fair, there is quite a bit of nudity from Hunter as well. Still, after 17 movies so far in this project, the nudity score stands at Penis 2, Bare breasts 1 (set). Who'd a thunk that?
In all, I really wanted to like this movie more than I did. The closest I came to liking a character was Keitel. There's probably some male/female short-circuiting going on that kept me from liking it more. The camerawork is beautiful and so is the music. The story is interesting to a point but never quite sold me.
No comments:
Post a Comment