Jane Champion 'The Piano'

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The release of the Jane Champion's The Piano in 1993 was almost a shocking event and till today is thought to be provoking. The movie has become the focus of the intensive debates about the postcolonial New Zealand and its neocolonial present. It is about the feminine desire and institutional moderation with in the marriage. It is about the psychological complexity of the human relations and love. The issues raised in the movie remain vital in the contemporary cultural studies. They include the possibility of the alternative forms of desire and human intercourse, the impediment of the aspirations to the postcolonial citizenship that does not put into the morass of the racial and identity politics. In this essay I will discuss the above issues and how they are depicted both in the movie and real life.

While reviewing the central debates which emphasize the feminine agency, the strange sense of irresolution is created. The feeling that some major issues were not fully developed and the author abandoned then, left alone to be resolved. The strange love story is presented which is set in a "specific location and historical, socio-political context, in addition, this love story undoes itself" (Silverman 1988, p. 5). Ada struggles to achieve the faithfulness of her own desire in the environment which hinders it. Through articulation of the nature Campion ironically asks the question if her "representation of the relationships among the landscapes and racial hierarchy" (Quart 1993, p. 2) is not in fact unreconstructed.

The minimal space of the colony is used to dramatize the destabilization. The movie destabilizes identities position regarding the race and gender. The author suggests that the colonial structure depen...

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... 1996, p. 17), however, in The Piano she managed to address the sexual wholeness for the first time. Ada is not a traditional heroine, and contradicts to the representation of the woman at that time. She wants "to be in control of her sexual desires" (Leitner 1996, p. 19) and soon Stewart becomes only an object for love for her.

Jane Campion in her movie "The Piano" managed to provide an insight on many issues which were important at age of colonialism and are still essential in modern life. The feminist movement started only several decades ago but the problems existed long before. The relationship between man and woman, domination of males and disempowerment of females is also present today, even though not in such aggressive form as earlier. Depicting the mute woman and her search for expressing herself made male characters weak in their domination.

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