A Magickal Overview

Rating: 10/10 (26 May 2004)

Spoilers!
As a student of metaphysics and magick I found "The Piano" to be rich and detailed in it's illustration of fundamental magickal principles, i.e. kundalini, the "true will", and polarities (yin & yang). Ada's muteness was a physical manifestation of a throat chakra blockage, as this is the chakra that relates to self-expression.
Note the sort of female archetype Ada represented is the kind men find most threatening. She is silent, inscrutable, unpredictable, powerful, with a mind of her own, like the ocean that carries her in and, and the conclusion, away.
Baines and Stewart could not have been more different, and here depict the yin-yang polarities that generate the conflict in which Ada finds herself enmeshed.
I don't know anything about the Moari, but in the film they seem to be a pretty free and open people. Indigenous cultures are highly magickal, attuned to the rhythms and cycles of the earth and sky. I assume Baine's tattoos signify a degree of initiation into their mysteries. I gather that Baine's work with the Maori opened him up to the point that not only was he able to "hear" Ada through her music, but really "see" her, in a way that Stewart would never be able to.
The "arrangement" Baines made with Ada basically amounted to a sex-magick operation. It was a successful one, replete with the usual blowback one can expect from these sorts of thing. The fact that the operation worked can be attributed to Baine's single minded focus and that he was in actuality the right man for her. He loved her for all the "right" reasons. They resonated together.
Baines had a limited time to generate enough Kundalini to show Ada how he felt about her, get her to reciprocate, and then stand the universe on it's head so that they could be together.
The "arrangement" was in my eyes the most genius part of the film. While it would appear that Baines has the upper hand it is really Ada who is in control, because he is thrall to her. He asks for permission every step of the way, and she grants it. He allows her to set the terms. She is an equal partner in their process.
I must digress here because Ada's will is usually expressed by what she choses NOT TO DO, i.e. won't speak, won't sleep with Stewart, etc. The only time we see really see her chosing TO DO something it is in relationship to Baines. In this respect he succeeds in "giving her a voice" in her destiny.
To overcome their barriers Baines uses touch. His touch was always gentle, even worshipful. When he appears naked before her rather than an aggressive move it is a sign of his vulnerability. Contrast that with Stewart, who could not tolerate being vulnerable. Baines succeeds in raising enough kundalini to charge them both up and the piano as well.
When forbidden to see Baines, Ada tries equlibrate by working the other side of the formula with Stewart. This is where she tries to undress him, caress and explore his body, but he won't play.
Naturally events escalate to the crisis level, after which Stewart realizes he can't fight fate and lets Ada go, although not out of any altruism but rather so that he can keep his stiff upper lip and go on pretending none of it ever happened.
The ending is terribly ambiguous, although it's far more satisfying to think Ada consciously submerged the past and was reborn into a new life of love and happiness in a bright, sunny, modern place. If Stewart showed no growth then Ada and Baines must necessarily grow, as they represent the other polarity. Of course, if Ada did drown herself one could view it as hers and Baines' punishment for messing with the natural order of things. Such is the trouble with magick.
There is so much information encoded in "The Piano" that I could go on for days, but I just wanted to express my views on these points, as they seemed the most important.