The Piano

Although The Piano is considered a chick flick, it is much different that what one would usually think of when hearing the term “chick flick”. The films that come to mind when describing a chick flick are usually light, romantic comedy, sometimes ditzy teenage girls, or sometimes a woman in about her 30s finding true love. Part of defining a chick flick can be that it is unrealistic, it will never happen to the viewer watching the film, but they always hope that it will anyways. I would not usually define The Piano as being a chick flick because it is sad, dark, depressing, and even at the end, the lightest moment, it still has a melancholic feeling. In some ways if I hadn’t known this was a female director, I probably would not have guessed it. The film did not portray men or women in a positive way. At first I felt bad for Ada, because she couldn’t speak, and she was arranged in an unwanted marriage. All she wanted was her beloved piano. As the movie went on, I began to feel as though she loved her piano more that she even loved her own daughter. She becomes so obsessed with it, that she basically trades sex (making it an affair which is even worse) in order to regain ownership for her piano. Baines spends a large amount of time just listening to Ada play the piano. In some ways, she had a pretty good deal going on. She could spend the day playing the piano while everyone outside thought that she was giving Baines lessons. So why was she so desperate to get the piano back completely? After Ada’s fingers get chopped off, she can no longer play the piano. So even though she is no longer with her husband and she has left the island with Baines, her daughter and the piano, she is still unhappy. Now I’m not saying that she should be totally psyched, because how can you be when your finger was just chopped off? However, attempting suicide is extreme. I’ve heard people say before that they believe suicide is selfish. Everyone has different opinions on this, but I feel like it can be in certain cases and not in other cases. For Ada, although she did not end up finishing it out, it would have been selfish for her to have killed herself. She obviously is unhappy, but she also has a daughter who loves her and needs to be cared for by her mother. She has a man who loves her and apparently she loves him and he would be miserable without her. These are the thoughts that I assumed were going through Ada’s head when she was beginning to see her life slip away. Ada’s husband was portrayed to be very distant from her and then violent towards the end. Baines was portrayed in a negative way also as he in some ways forces intimate relations with Ada in the beginning of their relationship. Baines was seen as having a one track mind-sex for most of the film. These portrayals would give hints that the director is a female. However, Ada is also seen in a negative way therefore it would be hard to determine the gender of the director.