Director Jane Campion with Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill

A sensual, shocking film filled with intriguing painterly images from the start: pink sunshine coming through fingers. The sensuousness of a hole in a stocking (“A sweet disorder in the dress. . .”). Who cares if it’s feasible to spend a night on a windswept beach in the shelter of a crinoline cage – it was true within the framing of this film. The most mind-blowing and heart-breaking image was of Ada’s crinoline sinking into the mud as she collapsed after her husband’s revenge. Shades even of the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. Perhaps not the allusion the director intended, although, on reflection, there is something traditionally witch-like about Ada’s blacks and unyielding expression.

It’s about an electively mute woman, her daughter and her piano, through which she communicates and speaks to he who has ears to hear. So much is unspoken in the film: why did she stop speaking at the age her daughter is now? The little girl is a tremendous talker – but so much of what she says are made-up stories. Perhaps muteness is a way to be true and utter no lies. Love and desire in this film certainly grow without the need for words – and there are dreadful consequences in putting feelings into words that can be read by the wrong eyes.

It’s one of those films that make you think about the inequitable agency/choice (as far as it was possible for anyone) for women of previous eras. Ada’s prickly will is her armour, as her music is her amour. She allows her will to be drowned but her music in future will always have a metallic ring. Perhaps that counts as a happy ending.