Michael Nyman's omnipresent dinner-party score. Keitel's biro
tattoos. Hunter's bonnet and crinoline. Familiarity breeds
contempt. The strange world of Ada (Hunter), the dumb pianist sent to
New Zealand's wild Waikato coast to marry a sweaty farmer (Neill), her
subsequent affair with his bailiff George (Keitel) who rescues her
piano, her wild daughter (Paquin) who ultimately turns on her mother –
it now seems old territory. But Campion's film caused a stir – not only
among the chattering classes – and rightly so. In collaboration with
novelist Kate Pullinger, she explored the connections between
independence, communication and sexuality, creating that rarest of
things: a modern myth.
