I deliberately chose a movie. It turned out to be The Piano. I liked something in it at the first glance, I don't know what it was. But I chose a terrible day to watch it. I must confess, I was already lost that day and I couldn't get much out of the movie. The next day early in the morning when the sky was quite blue, blue like the ocean, the movie slowly came upon me. Every scene began to roll in my head and as if I were a Piano myself, knots began to play in me.
No, I am not allowed to be poetic here. For the more prosaic side, I would say, the movie reminded me of another compelling story, The Reader (2008). Why? I guess you would know it only if you watch both movies with a long forgetful gap in between.
To quote IMBD summary of The Reader, " Post-WWII Germany: Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial. " Well it is about love. Love which creeps you in a strange way. It creeps you in through a dark passage of desire, passion and anything but Platonic Love.
And the summary of The Piano goes like this , " A mute woman along with her young daughter, and her prized piano, are sent to 1850s New Zealand for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner, and she's soon lusted after by a local worker on the plantation. " (IMBD)
Lust? Is it the keyword? But it isn't just Lust -
George Baines: Ada, I'm unhappy. 'Cause I want you. 'Cause my mind has seized on you and can think of nothing else. This is why I've suffered. I am sick with longing. I don't eat, I don't sleep. So, if you have come with no feeling for me, then go. Go. Go. Get out. Leave! (The Piano)
I feel am quite powerless to say about both movies. But I do feel about them, I feel about them differently. I read them through my colored senses. And all I read is - Passion. Whether for Piano, a quest to one's own voice or for Letters, uneasiness over one's mortal flaw. Have you ever been ashamed of something? So much so that you put your life in brackets? The Reader is a story of such a character who prefers confinement to reveal a shameful secret - that she can not Read.
The crux of both movies is love and yet it is not just the love. The movies revolve around strong Female characters who can just not let go of something so Precious, though they can let go of anything else. Ada, in The Piano, let go of her Self, allows Baines to ... do something with her while she plays the Piano. It is a deal. But isn't it more than a deal? One finds the answer when Ada , after he has returned her Piano, being restless, goes to Baines, only to Slap him hard and submit herself again, this time Unconditionally. The Reader is more complex to understand. I watched it perhaps an year or two back. And now I realize I hadn't understood much at that time.
The human quality and touchiness of both the movies is just enough to make you leave in trance. And when in this trance the words like Lust and Love echo in your mind, you know it, you know there is something between the Lust and Love - something between and beyond...
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