The Piano - Setting

Campion uses setting effectively in The Piano, using the west coast of the South Island as the location for the film. The dark, cold, muddy environment of the west coast helps the audience to understand how Ada feels about moving - lonely and scared. The era the film is set in means that the characters have to endure dirty conditions and this is shown in the scene (at 1:33:05) where Flora has been running through the forest following Alisdair and it has been raining; her hair is messy and her clothes are covered in mud showing that she's losing the innocence that comes with being a child. The way the forest is set with the fallen trees and their branches sticking out with sharp edges makes the forest appear unwelcoming and scary. All of these combine to create a horrible place for the characters and  the audience and it also creates a gloomy mood for the film. The combination of the repulsive setting with the mire, mud and the violence shown between Alisdair and Ada makes the audience feel disgusted and heightens the drama and intensity of the scene. The rain, which symbolises gloominess and sadness, tires the characters down and makes the scene feel cold and unwelcoming with the combination of the dark coloured lighting with the black, brown and blue tones. The forest shows the terror in the shot as the forest portrayed as a dark and mysterious place where bad things lurk. During the scene (at 1:34:38) where Ada's finger has been chopped off, the audience is able to see in the background the large broken branches which are strewn all over the forest floor, making the environment look menacing and threatening. This highlights how unsafe the environment is, yet young children - including Flora - are made to live and survive there. This scene links to the message of women being controlled by men through Ada and Alisdairs relationship. Ada is forced to marry Alisdair, a man she doesn't love, and this scene shows his mistreatment to Ada by chopping her finger off because she cheated on him, emphasizing how wrong it is to the audience through mise-en-scène and the setting.