The Piano

The beginning of The Piano reminded me of the beginning of another more recent film, Sweet Land, in which a German mail-order bride arrives in a rural part of the United States to meet her new husband. Ada in The Piano and Inge in Sweet Land both have to overcome major communication barriers while they adapt to their new surroundings. The initial similarities between the two movies were very striking, but The Piano quickly diverges as Ada’s relationships with her husband and with George develop. Her initial interaction with her husband was odd – when Ada’s new husband greeted her for the first time he told her that she was smaller than he expected, which seemed to foreshadow the unbalanced and awkward relationship they would have throughout the movie.

Ada has very little control in her life with her new husband. Right after she moves there, the women of the house put her in a dress to take wedding pictures that Ada is very apparently miserable about taking. These are the only women besides Ada with a major part in the film, and they are portrayed as judgmental and condescending, saying things like “There’s nothing so easy to like as a pet and they’re quite silent.”

Ada has very little control in the piano situation in general – her husband trades it with George for more land and then demands that Ada provide George with lessons. When George offers to give Ada the piano back eventually in return for sexual favors, Ada uses the only control she has over the situation to regain her piano. Although it was Ada’s only real way of expressing power or control in the film, the first few lessons with George feel uncomfortably demeaning. As Ada falls in love with George, though, the relationship becomes less unpleasant. It was, however, really jarring for me to see Ada go from seeming so sexually exploited by George to being in a mutually loving relationship with him. George allows Ada more power than her husband does. When he realizes the dysfunction of their relationship, he returns the piano and explains that it belonged to her when her husband gave it to him, and at one point in the film, he shows that Ada has emotional control over him when he says he can’t eat or sleep because of her.