The history of women behind the camera is a history of oppression, as filmmaking, like so many professions and artistic endeavours, was once the reserve of well-connected, well-off white men. Not the female narrative as Hollywood knows it, but the kind that's familiar to a New Zealand and even an Asia-Pacific audience: women who are unusual, women who are complicated and talented, women who are weird, women who have overcome, women who march to the beat of their own drum – or piano, if you will.' Certainly it feels as though the specificity of The Piano is part of its unique charm – it’s a fairytale, but one so steeped in the harshness of reality, it feels at once familiar and bracingly different from anything that came before it. Romance, jealousy and heartache play out against a lush, unforgiving backdrop of Antipodean forestry and coastline – while Flora desperately searches for the agency and happiness that have so far eluded her.įor New Zealand film critic Maria Lewis, Campion’s cultural identity is part of what makes The Piano so special: “Jane Campion has always centred the female narrative. She travels to the remote island with her young daughter Flora (Anna Paquin), but after her new husband trades her piano to his friend George Baines (Harvey Keitel), Ada is furious, and resolves to reclaim her beloved instrument through a bargain with the new owner. Influenced by Jane Mander’s The Story of A New Zealand River as well as the French folktale Bluebeard, Campion’s story is of a Scottish pianist named Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter), an elective mute who is sold off by her father into a marriage with New Zealand frontiersman Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill).

Why Agnès Varda was the most popular director The 100 greatest films directed by women What the critics had to say about the top 25 Read more about BBC Culture’s 100 greatest films directed by women: Her haunting period romance The Piano shared the award with Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine, but in BBC Culture’s critics’ poll of the 100 greatest films by women, Campion doesn’t have to share the prize a second time: The Piano was chosen as the number one film in a remarkable list that showcases more than 100 years of female filmmaking.

In 1993, Jane Campion made history when she became the first woman (and the first New Zealander) to receive the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Piano by Jane Campion