Jane Campion (Sweetie, An Angel at My Table) continues to pursue an interest in the tricky cinematic subject of inward states: namely those of a mute-by-choice Victorian Scotswoman and the white-man-gone-native (Maori facial tattoos, Maori bedmates) with whom she has an extramarital affair in far-off New Zealand. At some point the 19th-century Gothic-romantic ambience is overrun by a more modern, knowing, unbuttoned brand of eroticism -- the Brontë sisters, if you will, elbowed aside by Nancy Friday: perverse, "creative," fetishistic (touching a spot of flesh through a hole in a stocking, sniffing the bodice of a dress), and, for both the viewer and the slow-on-the-uptake cuckold, voyeuristic. Holly Hunter certainly has the metabolic fervor to convince you that a great deal is going on within, but her self-expression through the vehicle of her piano is highly dubious: folk-tinged New Age-y stuff, watery, repetitive, rhythmically monotonous. (The composer is the British minimalist Michael Nyman, best known to moviegoers for his "mesmerizing" -- or torturing, according to taste -- musical scores for Peter Greenaway.) When this is to be the heroine's sole "voice," it seems crucial that you be able to listen to it without a curled lip. And for a film about the inner life, the characters are significantly lacking in depth. The passions may be all very grand and twisted and mysterious, but the plotting is thin and impatient and facile. With Harvey Keitel and Sam Neill. (1993) — Duncan Shepherd
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