The Piano, Jane Campion (1992)

The Piano is, more than anything a story about female repression. The protagonist, Ada, is, almost to a humorous extent, the epitome of Victorian rigidity. Ada is something of a caricature with her plain white face, blank stare, exaggerated black hoop-skirt and bonnet. She is a tragic female character by all accounts: sold into a loveless marriage and trapped in a foreign land. The only way in which Ada has agency is, ironically, in her refusal to speak. Though she has almost no control over her immediate situation, she demonstrates incredible will and power over others, who seem both intrigued and intimidated by her. The piano is clearly the outlet for all of Ada’s pent up emotions, and is, on many occasions, made out to be an extension of her physical being. When her beloved Piano is sold by her husband to their neighbor, Baines, Ada, is compelled to follow it. Knowing her obsession with music, Baines asks Ada for lessons as a way to get closer to her; the meetings quickly become sexually charged thus begins their illicit affair. Baines is able to appreciate and love Ada because understands that her music as an extension of her repressed spirit and an expression of her unspoken thoughts—unlike her husband, who does not appreciate her music as anything more than a hobby. In this way, we know that when Ada gives Baines one of her piano keys, it is quite seriously as though she is giving him a piece of herself—it is the most powerful gesture and offer she could possibly make. The significance of Ada’s gift is not lost on the husband, who is horrifically punishes her by literally chopping off one of Ada’s fingers. This point in the film is heavy with symbolic meaning, as Ada’s attempt at a repressed, albeit authentic expression of love is reprimanded by inhibiting her only means of self-expression. By cutting off her fingers, the husband threatens to cut her off from the world entirely.
When Ada and Baines at last escape to be married and live together, she is finally able to get rid of the piano and begins learning to speak. Up until this point in the film, the piano was her friend and her crutch, but Ada suddenly realizes what a weight it is on her life. Now that she has found true love and is living out her free will, she can rid herself of its literal and symbolic heaviness