Dom Robinson reviews
The Piano Distributed by
Entertainment In Video
Cat.no: EDV 9027
Cert: 15
Running time: 115 minutes
Year: 1993
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
Chapters: 12 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: No
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £15.99
Extras : Scene index, that's it.
Director:
(An Angel At My Table, Portrait of a Lady, Sweetie )
Producer:
Screenplay:
Music:
Cast:
Ada: Holly Hunter (Always, Broadcast News, Copycat, Crash, The Firm, Home For The Holidays, A Life Less Ordinary, Once Around, Raising Arizona )
Baines: Harvey Keitel (The Assassin, Blue in the Face, Bugsy, City of Industry, Clockers, Cop Land, Dangerous Game, From Dusk Till Dawn, Head Above Water, Last Temptation of Christ, Mean Streets, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs,
Rising Sun, Sister Act, Smoke, Taxi Driver, Thelma and Louise, The Two Jakes )
Stuart: Sam Neill (Dead Calm, Death In Brunswick, Enigma, Event Horizon, The Hunt For Red October, In The Mouth Of Madness, The Jungle Book (live action), Jurassic Park, Memoirs Of An Invisible Man, Omen III, Sirens,
Until The End Of The World )
Flora: Anna Paquin (Fly Away Home, Jane Eyre )
The Piano Holly Hunter ) as she is shipped off to
New Zealand with her nine-year-old daughter Flora (Anna Paquin ) to be
with her new husband Stuart (Sam Neill ), thanks to an arranged marriage.
Since Ada is mute by choice - she just hasn't spoken since the age of six and
doesn't know why - her only form of expression is through her beloved piano.
Alas, when they arrive on the beach, Stuart refuses to have it transported to
their home. Ada can't bear to watch it literally go to pieces, so strikes up
an arrangement of her own. In return for one black key per piano lesson, she
allows an illiterate, tattooed man named Baines (Harvey Keitel ) to
take advantage in ways she'd rather he didn't.
This film won three Oscars (Best Actress - Holly Hunter , Best
Supporting Actress - Anna Paquin and Best Original Screenplay) and
three BAFTAs (Best Actress again, Best Production Design and Best Costume
Design).
One surprise here is that for once we have an anamorphic transfer, increasing
the resolution for widescreen televisions by 33%, on a dual-layer disc. This
is something that EiV have never done for a £15.99 DVD and didn't appear
on the Region 1 disc. The average bitrate is an excellent 9.10Mb/s, although
the print can be very grainy at times giving way to artifacts onscreen. When
it is clear though, it gives a faithful reproduction of the dark, dank place
that the film is set in. The film is presented in its original widescreen
ratio of 1.85:1.
The sound is stated on the back of the box as Dolby Digital 5.1, but I have
it from a reliable source that it's plain old Dolby Surround, which is
misleading to any potential customers and breaks the Trades Descriptions Act.
That said, while the film isn't quite my cup of tea, the musical score by
Michael Nyman is excellent, particularly the main theme, "The Heart
Asks For Pleasure First" , which gets a regular airing on Classic FM.
Extras :
Chapters :
Languages & Subtitles :
English only in Dolby Surround, but at least we do have subtitles, even for
the occasional Maori language.
Menu :
A plain shot of Ada, Flora and the piano, with very few options: chapters
and subtitles only. In fact, I switched the subtitles on before starting the
film but they didn't appear and I had to select them manually during the film.
Regardless of whether you liked the film or not, the only thing that stands
this release apart from EiV's least-impressive discs is the anamorphic transfer
and subtitles, neither of which the Americans got and they had to pay $30 for
their disc.
However, it still has to be noted that from most distributors the
back-catalogue titles are getting a very rough deal.
DVD Trivia : Watch out for Holly Hunter's impression of The Simpsons '
Mr. Burns in the X-Files-ish "The Springfield Files" episode when she too is
wondering through the forest halfway through, albeit avoiding Sam Neill, with
the same doe-eyed look on her face.
FILM : **
PICTURE QUALITY : ***½
SOUND QUALITY : ****
EXTRAS : 0
-------------------------------
OVERALL : **½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.
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