The Piano (1993)
Director
Jane Campion
Main cast
Holly Hunter; Harvey Keitel; Sam Neill; Anna Paquin; Tungia Baker
Genres
Drama
Description
After a long voyage from Scotland, pianist Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter) and her young daughter, Flora (Anna Paquin), are left with all their belongings, including a piano, on a New Zealand beach. Ada, who has been mute since childhood, has been sold into marriage to a local man named Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill). Making little attempt to warm up to Alisdair, Ada soon becomes intrigued by his Maori-friendly acquaintance, George Baines (Harvey Keitel), leading to tense, life-altering conflicts.
Jane Campion
Main cast
Holly Hunter; Harvey Keitel; Sam Neill; Anna Paquin; Tungia Baker
Genres
Drama
Description
After a long voyage from Scotland, pianist Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter) and her young daughter, Flora (Anna Paquin), are left with all their belongings, including a piano, on a New Zealand beach. Ada, who has been mute since childhood, has been sold into marriage to a local man named Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill). Making little attempt to warm up to Alisdair, Ada soon becomes intrigued by his Maori-friendly acquaintance, George Baines (Harvey Keitel), leading to tense, life-altering conflicts.
Similar movies
After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
A drama about a Maori family lving in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Hekeâs strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.
Sophie loved Edmund, but he left town when her parents forced her to marry wealthy Octavius. Years later, Edmund returns with his son, William. Sophie's daughter, Marguerite, and William fall in love. Marguerite's sister, Marianne, also loves William. Timothy, a lowly carpenter, secretly loves Marianne. He kills a man in a fight, and Edmund helps him flee to New Zealand. William deserts inadvertently from the navy, and also flees in disgrace to New Zealand, where he and Timothy start a profitable business. One night, drunk, William writes Octavius, demanding his daughter's hand; but, being drunk, he asks for the wrong sister.
In New Zealand in the 1860s the native Maori people fought the British colonials to keep the land guaranteed to them by treaty. The warrior Te Wheke fights for the British until betrayal leads him to seek utu (revenge). The settler Williamson in turn seeks revenge after Te Wheke attacks his homestead. Meanwhile Wiremu, an officer for the British, seems to think that resistance is futile.
Secrets, rumors and betrayals surround the upcoming marriage between a young dissolute man and virtuous woman of the French aristocracy.
Humbert Humbert, a divorced British professor of French literature, travels to small-town America for a teaching position. He allows himself to be swept into a relationship with Charlotte Haze, his widowed and sexually famished landlady, whom he marries in order that he might gain access to her fourteen-year-old daughterâLolitaâwith whom he has fallen hopelessly in love, but whose affections shall be appropriated by a devious trickster named Clare Quilty.
This is a story about a romantic journey of a culturally opposite couple - Krish Malhotra and Ananya Swaminathan. They meet at the IIM-Ahmedabad College and during the program they fall in love. Complications arise after the program comes to an end and they decide to get married. Krish and Ananya belong to two different states of India. Krish, a North Indian Punjabi boy from Delhi, and Ananya, a Tamilian Brahmin from Chennai. They take a conscious decision; they won't get married until their parents agree. Everything goes downhill when the parents meet. There is a cultural clash and the parents oppose the wedding. To convert their love story into a love marriage, the couple faces a tough battle in front of them. For it is easy to fight and rebel, but much harder to convince. Will Krish and Ananya's love for each other sustain the battles? Will they manage to convince their parents and make it to their wedding? The film thus is a humorous take on inter community marriages in India.
On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.
An intimate story set during the 1860s in which a young Irish woman Sarah and her family find themselves on both sides of the turbulent wars between British and Maori during the British colonization of New Zealand.
Like his father, Tom is a real estate agent who makes his money from dirty, and sometimes brutal, deals. But a chance encounter prompts him to take up the piano and become a concert pianist. He auditions with the help of a beautiful, young virtuoso pianist who cannot speak French - music is their only exchange. But pressures from the ugly world of his day job soon become more than he can handle...
When Jake LaMotta steps into a boxing ring and obliterates his opponent, he's a prizefighter. But when he treats his family and friends the same way, he's a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any moment. Though LaMotta wants his family's love, something always seems to come between them. Perhaps it's his violent bouts of paranoia and jealousy. This kind of rage helped make him a champ, but in real life, he winds up in the ring alone.
Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girlâs secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.
It's 1984, and Michael Jackson is king - even in Waihau Bay, New Zealand. Here we meet Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his gran, a goat, and his younger brother, Rocky (who thinks he has magic powers). Shortly after Gran leaves for a week, Boy's father, Alamein, appears out of the blue. Having imagined a heroic version of his father during his absence, Boy comes face to face with the real version-an incompetent hoodlum who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years before. This is where the goat enters.
The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations.
Mexican immigrant and single mother Flor Moreno finds housekeeping work with Deborah and John Clasky, a well-off couple with two children of their own. When Flor admits she can't handle the schedule because of her daughter, Cristina, Deborah decides they should move into the Clasky home. Cultures clash and tensions run high as Flor and the Claskys struggle to share space while raising their children on their own, and very different, terms.
Charlie Kohler is a piano player in a bar. The waitress Lena is in love with him. One of Charlie's brother, Chico, a crook, takes refuge in the bar because he is chased by two gangsters, Momo and Ernest. We will discover that Charlie's real name is Edouard Saroyan, once a virtuose who gives up after his wife's suicide. Charlie now has to deal wih Chico, Ernest, Momo, Fido (his youngest brother who lives with him), and Lena...
Stefan and Dolly Oblonsky have had a spat and Stefan has asked his sister, Anna Karenina, to come down to Moscow to help mend the rift. Anna's companion on the train from St. Petersburg is Countess Vronsky who is met at the Moscow station by her son. Col. Vronsky looks very dashing in his uniform and it's love at first sight when he looks at Anna and their eyes meet.
An ex-Boer war guerrilla in New Zealand is sent out to bring back a Maori accused of killing a British soldier. Gradually they grow to know and respect one another but a posse, led by the British Commanding officer is close behind and his sole intention is to see the Maori hang. Written by Filmfinders 1903. A guerilla fighter from the South African Boer war called Arjan (Winstone) takes on a manhunt for Maori seaman Kereama (Morrison), who is accused of murdering a British soldier. What follows is a cat and mouse pursuit through the varied landscape of NZ with both hunter and huntee testing their bushcraft and wits against that of the other. Written by Anonymous
One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.
A drama set in 1986 Iran and centered on a man, Sahebjam (Caviezel), whose car breaks down in a remote village and enters into a conversation with Zahra (Aghdashloo), who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya (Marnò), whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant had a tragic ending.
Set in the south of the United States just after the Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband Jack, believed killed in the Civil War. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart...
Ivan is the fierce patriarch of a family of Croatian refugees in Auckland. Nina is his daughter, ready to live on her own, despite his angry objections. Eddie is the Maori she takes as her lover. Nina works at a restaurant where Eddie cooks. For a price, she agrees to marry a Chinese, another restaurant employee, so that he (and his Chinese wife) can establish permanent residency. The money gives her the independence she needs to leave her parents' house and move in with Eddie. Complications arise when Eddie realizes the depth of her father's fury and the strength of Nina's family ties.
Kawariki must become the leader of the family after his father retires in this intimate drama. A husband and father, he realizes that in order to lead with integrity, he must come out and be honest about his own life, even though it will test the boundaries of acceptance and unconditional love. Offering valuable insights into Maori traditions, family ideals and cultural values, this feature debut is rich and textured with emotional layers and stunning New Zealand landscapes. Written by Websurfer (IMDB.com)
An actress's perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.
Set in post-war (1949) rural New Zealand, this film traces the efforts of two con men to run a betting scam in a small town (Tainuea) already rife with illegal gambling corruption, and eccentricity.
Emmanuelle, a svelte,naive young woman, is en route to Bangkok where she'll join her new husband. He works for the French Embassy and has a lovely home, several dedicated servants, and an expensive car at his disposal. Once Emmanuelle arrives, her husband and a few friends introduce her to a realm of sexual ecstasy she'd never imagined.
As her marriage dissolves, a Manhattan writer takes driving lessons from a Sikh instructor with marriage troubles of his own. In each other's company they find the courage to get back on the road and the strength to take the wheel.
Valentin (Rodrigo Noya), a 9-year-old boy living with his grandmother (Carmen Maura) in late-1960s Buenos Aires, believes his family has problems that only he can solve. The youngster dreams of being reunited with his mother, who's separated from Valentin's abusive father (Alejandro Agresti, who also wrote and directed).
With his family away for their annual summer holiday, Richard Sherman decides he has the opportunity to live a bachelor's life. The beautiful but ditzy blonde from the apartment above catches his eye and they soon start spending time together - maybe a little too much time!
Based on the true story of Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, two close friends who share a love of fantasy and literature, who conspire to kill Pauline's mother when she tries to end the girls' intense and obsessive relationship.
The movie is about five couples who are on their honeymoon at Ooty and share the same hotel. All of them are pretty newly wed except for one who are celebrating their wedding anniversary. Together the couples take many tours and visit sites together in Ooty and get to know each other on a personable level. Slowly and steadily host of stories open up about each of them.
A melancholy story about the love between a woman and a man who live in the same building and one day find out that their husband and wife had an affair with each other. More and more the two meet during their daily lives as they determine that they both donât want to be lonely in their marriage.
Jess Bhamra, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton, who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe.
Liz has missed an appointment to have an abortion. She has to keep her child, and neither her boyfriend Geoff nor child's father Neil are too happy about it. She can not decide which partner is better for her, and Neil makes a proposal to her when they attend the wedding of her best friend Prue and Mike. She probably prefers Geoff, but he is preoccupied with his girlfriend Bryony, who returned from abroad. Another friend, Ant, has written a script for documentary film, which is directed by a German and in which topless women, well, talk about their lives.
Coming of age tale told through the eyes of 'Tu', an ambitious young man from Auckland who dreams of being a professional hip-hop dancer.
Neelakanta (Prakash Raj)has two daughters. His elder daughter Subbalakshmi (Poonam Bajwa) elopes with a guy called Babu from a lower class on the night of her arranged marriage. Neelakanta men kidnap all the friends of Babu. Krishna (Allu Arjun) â a happy go lucky guy from Hyderabad â is one among them. Krishna likes a girl called Meena (Sheila) who happens to be the younger daughter of Neelakanta
A three-way love affair in the Rome of the early seventies. Construction worker Oreste and young fiancee Adelaide meet Nello, cook in a pizzeria. This love triangle often go to communist rallies, and enjoy the filthy beach of Ostia. Will the hostile environment leave a way to jealousy?
Will Bastion returns home from the army after an absence of 20 years to bury his father, the former chief of thee Maori tribe, Ngati Kaipuku. The eldest son, he is reluctant to inherit his fathers role, so it is taken more willingly by his younger brother, Kahu. Kahu is the leader of a band of drug dealers and trouble-makers who ride horses through the middle of town, wrecking peoples gardens. Under the guise of refusal of a land settlement, Kahu makes a large marijuana deal with some murdering city folk. Will must choose between loyalty for his brother and his father, Maori tradition, and contemporary financial issues.
Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.
ARRANGED centers on the friendship between an Orthodox Jewish woman and a Muslim woman who meet as first-year teachers at a public school in Brooklyn. Over the course of the year they learn they share much in common - not least of which is that they are both going through the process of arranged marriages.
Married couple Jack and Terry Linden are experiencing a difficult period in their relationship. When Jack decides to step outside the marriage, he becomes involved with Edith, who happens to be the wife of his best friend and colleague, Hank Evans. Learning of their partners' infidelity, Terry and Hank engage in their own extramarital affair together. Now, both marriages and friendships are on the brink of collapse.
It is the 1960s. Two Maori families, the Mahanas and the Poatas, make a living shearing sheep on the east coast of New Zealand. The two clans, who are bitter enemies, face each other as rivals at the annual sheep shearing competitions. Simeon is a 14-year-old scion of the Mahana clan. A courageous schoolboy, he rebels against his authoritarian grandfather Tamihana and his traditional ways of thinking and begins to unravel the reasons for the long-standing feud between the two families. Before long, the hierarchies and established structures of the community are in disarray because Tamihana, who is as stubborn as he is proud, is not prepared to acquiesce and pursue new paths.
Set in Edwardian England where upper lips are always stiff and men from the Colonies are not entirely to be trusted, Fisk Senior has little time or affection for his son, but when the pair visit an eccentric Indian, they start a strange journey that eventually allows the old man to find his heart.
Jackson and Helen are in love and about to have their first child when they move in with Jackson's mother, Martha, in order to take care of the family estate. But all is not well in this household. Martha is jealous of her son's affection for Helen, and, despite her Southern smile, she's starting to act strangely. As Helen tries to create a happy home life, Martha attempts to divide the family so that Jackson will become hers alone.
After Dr. Bill Hartford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
A random act of violence leaves eight people in crisis, searching for hope and new beginnings, as the Matariki constellation (Maori New Year) rises in the Southern skies.
An American spinster who takes a job teaching Maori students in New Zealand finds unexpected romance with two men.
Jodhaa Akbar is a sixteenth century love story about a marriage of alliance that gave birth to true love between a great Mughal Emperor, Akbar and a Rajput princess, Jodhaa.
The film is about three close friends, each one having a different perspective about marriage. Govinda plays a divorce lawyer in the film who doesn't believe in marriage and is a Casanova of sorts. Khan plays a character for whom being in love matters most and D'Souza plays his love interest. Kapoor plays a Gujarati who believes in the system of arranged marriage and Desai plays his Gujarati wife.
Vitus tells the story of a highly-gifted boy (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him.
In 1965 Mexico City, Fabiola, a wealthy yet lonely schoolgirl, befriends Graciela, a young orphan girl who has an unhealthy fascination with witchcraft. Fabiola is convinced that she, herself, is a witch by Graciela, who then uses the fear that she's put into her new friend to get Fabiola to carry out her orders. As their games grow more serious, the two girls find themselves involved in murder.
Before crossing paths with Peyton, falling for a woman was an unimaginable situation for Elena, a straight wife and mother. The friendship between Peyton, an out lesbian writer, and Elena, the wife of an anti-gay paster who has never experienced true love, transforms swiftly from a one-sided crush into a torrid extramarital affair. Despite their attraction, Peyton, jaded in a number of ways, has strong reservations about becoming involved with a married straight woman; Elena, recognizing that she is caught in a loveless marriage, can barely begin to rationalize the nature and magnitude of her desires. As their relationship evolves, Elena confronts the choice of leaving her husband or ending her involvement with Peyton to save her unraveling and unrewarding marriage and return to a drab and automated life. Above all, Elena faces the looming challenge of convincing Peyton that the two women have a bright future together despite their unfavorable circumstances
Dangerous Liaisons is the film based on the novel of the same name by Choderlos de Laclos set in 18th century France. Marquise de Merteuilâs asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things donât go as planned in this love triangle drama.
"Sofia introduces her three adult daughters to her new lover who is their age and happens to be a woman. The women, in particular Elvira find it extremely difficult to accept their mothers sudden apparent sexual reversal. The news pushes the neurotic Elvira to the point of nervous breakdown. Sol, the youngest daughter, writes a lude rock song about it and performs in front of them at a concert. The daughters plot together on how to get their mothers new girlfriend, a native Czech, and brilliant pianist, out of her life. Their plot goes terribly wrong and turns the film from a light-hearted comedy, into mildly amusing drama."
In a Turkish village, five orphaned sisters live under strict rule while members of their family prepare their arranged marriages.
Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.
Dominique Marceau is on trial for the murder of Gilbert Tellier. The counsels duel relentlessly, elaborating explanations for why the pretty, idle and fickle girl killed the talented and ambitious conductor freshly graduated from the conservatory. Was it passion, vengeance, desperation, an accident? The acquaintances of Gilbert testify, as well as Dominique's former lovers, and her sister, Annie, the studious violin player engaged to Gilbert. The evidence they give progressively paints a more finely-shaded picture of the personalities of Dominique and Gilbert, and of their relationship, than the eloquent and convincing justifications of the counsels.
John (Arya) and Regina (Nayanthara) are forced into wedlock against their wishes. Both undergo a rough patch initially in their marriage as they are not able to get over their past romances. Prior to their marriage, Regina was in love with Surya (Jai), while John romanced Keerthana (Nazriya). What leads to the Arya-Nayanthara wedding? How they forget their romantic past and finally come together forms the rest of the story.
Dhadkan is about Anjali (Shilpa Shetty) who is a girl that hails from an extremely rich and influential family. Her father Mr. Chauhan (Kiran Kumar) is a renowned businessman and has many dreams for his daughter. But Anjali is in love with Dev (Sunil Shetty) who is very poor & often cannot even afford to clothe himself properly. Dev also loves Anjali, wants to marry her so has to meet her father.
Marriages are made in heaven! Though the road to heaven might be a little âtedhaâ. Meet âManuâ, a seedha saadha Doctor from London. Intelligent, temperate and from a respectable family, The perfect groom which every parent wants for their daughter. âFamily pressureâ leads him to Kanpur to meet Tanu the quintessential small town girl who has studied in Delhi. Tanu is a smart, intelligent girl who will do everything that her parents will disapprove. With a mind of her own and a love for rebellion, Tanu is dead against an arranged marriage. But destiny holds something totally different for these dramatically diverse personalities. Their paths keep crossing time and again and weaves this wonderful story through the Indian heartland.
© Valossa 2015–2024
