WATCH WITH YOUR HEART AND EARS

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 2000)

I thought I would chip into the very mixed debate on this particular film. I must confess, I adore this film. I am not a great devotee of either the director or the cast but their combined effect is greater than the sum of the parts.
Visually, it is a stunning piece of work - a succession of film canvases from sweeping landscapes to intimate portraits. Nyman provides fitting support with a score that picks up every sight and emotion. Written to accommodate Hunter's capacity as a pianist, the score's concerto expansion builds upon solid foundations and is to be recommended. None of this really guides you to why some people rave about this film.
This film may be about rampant feminism, Victorian values, the colonial backwaters and sexual repression but I doubt it. I simply take it as being about love, all-consuming passion -passion expressed in music, in physical love, in longing, sacrifice and in pain. Over analyse it if you want but I wouldn't dream of scraping the paint from a Turner any more than I would of deconstructing this film.
Every time Ada encounters her husband in the woods her eyes open wide and I have fallen into them a hundred times.