The Piano depicts a woman with autism

Rating: 10/10 (10 January 2005)

I just watched "The Piano" again (I first saw it one year ago). Back then, I saw it as a movie about a tragic love triangle with two men competing for the love of the same woman (which it is)and how the one who came to truly understand what the piano was to her won her love. (But I sure didn't agree with his tactics!) I also felt that Ada was symbolic of the lot of women at the time-not able to control her own life and basically just seen as a piece of property by her husband. It also seemed to paint men as dealing with women in exploitative ways. Baines invents a sexual game using Ada's compulsive need for the piano as a bargaining chip to get her into bed (hardly a romantic way to seduce a woman!), while her husband Stewart clearly has rape on his mind on at least two occasions, it was written all over him. I am presently in a Master's degree program in Special Education and my newly acquired knowledge of autism and related disorders has led me to recognize that Ada seems to have autism. The facts that she can hear, can read and write, yet is non-verbal, are a few clues. Other clues are that she engages in repetitive behavior. She composes music with very repetitive note patterns, and plays the same pieces over and over, just her own music and no one else's. When deprived of her piano, she carves the shapes of the piano keys into the table top, so she can still "play" the piano; she compulsively needs to do this. Still other clues are her inability to express her emotions and interact with people, and her aversion to being touched. Both the men in her life are frustrated with these two characteristics. She never tries to communicate with any of the people in the village, and barely interacts with her husband or Baines. The only person she really interacts with is her daughter, until Baines manages to finally break through her emotional wall. In many ways, she fits the profile of an autistic savant. Many autistic people have profound musical talent, and it is a means of communication and emotional expression for them. I haven' t heard anywhere that Jane Campion intended for Ada to be autistic, if it's a coincidence, it's a very interesting coincidence. I wonder if anyone knows for sure if it's true. It is a very subtle movie, and none of this is very obvious, and it is a movie that can be interpreted in many ways, so I'm not surprised that no one else has picked up on this yet.