The Last Patriarch

Abstract

There is a scene two-thirds of the way through The Piano in which the film's heroine, Ada, lies stretched out on a bed gazing at herself in a small hand-mirror. Just a few hours earlier she had ripped off her clothes and foresworn her marriage vows with the next-door neighbor; now, as is more usual, she is self-contained and inscrutable. From the intensity of her gaze into the mirror, it seems as if she is involved in some kind of confrontation with her own idea of herself, but the nature of that struggle remains undefined. Having chosen to be mute, she has no chance of expressing her feelings in spoken language.