Spectacle of Art; One of the Best Movies of the Decade

Rating: 10/10 (30 August 2015)

One summer, I watched two movies ostensibly involving pianos. The first was 'The Pianist,' a fine if not extraordinary Holocaust picture that I feel gets a bit more love than it deserves, though it does get far better in the second half. The second movie was this one. It concerns a mute girl whose only voice is her piano, as well as her daughter, played to Oscar gold by a young Anna Paquin.
Of these movies, The Pianist gave me about what I expected. If I hadn't seen Schindler's List first, I think I would have liked this movie better. But it is a fine picture that I will say is better than the movie that did win Best Picture, Chicago (though LOTR:TT is better than them both). This movie, on the other hand, gave me what I didn't expect. I don't know what I expected, but an artful, stirringly-shot film with characters that you get invested in that is also quite erotic is not it.
Especially the erotic part. It is done well and I liked it alright but it did surprise me. Part of that is because I live in America, a country with no problem showing mass amounts of violence but that hates showing natural sexuality. I could describe this in detail but I see no reason to do so when so many people have done so already.
What I will do is take a bit of time to completely destroy the argument that sex and violence in movies can be gratuitous. Bear with me. As a writer, I know that gratuitous means unneeded or unnecessary. But think about that for a second. By that definition, do you know what else is gratuitous? Vacations. Fancy food. And fiction itself. Sex and violence are no more gratuitous than good characters and writing. If you don't like ample portions of sex and violence in fiction, fine. But don't call it gratuitous. Because it's not. Instead, we should judge whether or not it adds something to the tone and desires of the film. More likely than not, it does.
Certainly, it does in this movie. I'll try not to spend too long talking about this because there is a lot else that I want to get to. But sex is not glamorized here. There is simply carnal passion between the characters. But it is not simple at all. It addresses it complexly, which it is. All and all, it rings true.
And it is as these points above all else that it is clear that this film was directed by a female, one of too few major films that is. I'm not saying that she does a better or worse job at these scenes because of her sex, but it is definitely different. And educational for me. As a male, I do not automatically see things from a woman's perspective. This opened my eyes somewhat, as many good movies tend to do.
If you watch these scenes of passion, you see that warm colors dominate. Saturated reds and oranges take center stage, as opposed to the outside scenes, which are shot with cold colors. Those being saturated blues and greens. I am always a fan of this sort of chromatic differentiation when it is done well, a major reason why I love Soderbergh's Traffic. Also notice that whether the colors run hot or cold, they always run distant, a choice that I do believe helps with the cold, intermediary, almost purgatorial feel that the film is going for. It the second best thing about this movie.
The best being Anna Paquin's performance. Though only a ten year old girl at the time, Paquin pulls off the best performance of her career and the best performance of the film in general. As well as the most important. Her innocence and naivete adds a certain light to a movie that can at times get dark.
There were times when I was about to fade off into the dark blues of the cinematography, but Anna brought be right back. And that's not to say she's only an ingenue. She comes off as a legitimately driven, hopeful, real young girl. To the film's credit, they don't even make her Superman-perfect like they do for so many kid characters. She is the main reason her mute mother, played well by Helen Hunt in an Oscar-winning performance, suffers a catastrophic physical setback that I won't go into for sake of spoilers but that is quite traumatic. This is one of the best performances by a child actor ever. That actor is deserved.
Not that the other performances are bad. Other than Helen Hunt, Harvey Keitel is also spectacular. Sam Neill, otherwise known as 'that guy from Jurassic Park', is okay but is the worst performance in the film. That guy just doesn't have any charisma.
And I will not forget to mention the soundtrack, one of the best I've ever heard. It's like an Avengers soundtrack, made up of some of the best pieces in history, particularly the theme, which I listen to every time I want to get immersed into life.
Just like the piano brings out the heart and soul of our mute main, this movie brings out our heart and soul. If I could, I would give myself up to this film. Let it play some music on my heart.