The Brutality of Femininity

Jane Campion has gone underground Down Under. The celebrated and oft-times controversial filmmaker is on a four-year hiatus, having traded in exotic locales and 15-hour days for life as "a complete and happy slave" to her only child, Alice. So the Oscar and Palme d'Or for The Piano, plus myriad other awards, gather dust in the Campion home in Sydney, while mother and daughter hoof it up on horseback (10-year-old Alice's passion).

Harvey Keitel has called Campion "a goddess." Nicole Kidman calls her a friend. It's a coveted spot on the A-list, and it takes guts to give that up. But 50-year-old Campion is nothing if not brave, imbued with the same brand of in-your-face individualism as the unforgettable female characters she has brought to the screen: Sweetie, Janet, Ada, Isabel, Ruth and Frannie.

From a gothic love story in colonial New Zealand to an erotic film noir in Manhattan, the six features Campion has made since 1989 run the gamut of storyline and style. But they all share an overarching theme: the struggle of non-conformist women who dare to stare down the brutality they encounter when they disregard rules laid down for them by men. Delving into such a hot-button subject has won Campion legions of admirers - and her fair share of detractors. She makes no apologies.

"It's important that there's controversial work in the world," she explains. "When I started watching film in the '70s, a lot of films were exciting and daring, takings risks. ... [Now] it's all about box office. If you take the analogy of restaurants, having a high turnover and popularity - like McDonald's or Burger King - doesn't necessarily make for high cuisine."

The danger of being different is poignantly illustrated in An Angel at My Table, the real-life story of Janet Frame. The New Zealand writer (played by Kerry Fox) is so shy and socially awkward that a gaggle of male doctors misdiagnose her as a schizophrenic. She spends eight horrific years in a mental institution and it's only her insistence to keep on writing that affords her a narrow escape from a lobotomy.

Ada McGrath isn't so lucky in The Piano when her husband comes after her with an axe. A spunky single mother in 19^th century Scotland, she is mute by choice. Instead of words, she communicates through her piano and her young daughter. These two in tow, Ada (Holly Hunter) ventures fearlessly to the end of the earth, sent to the New Zealand bush to marry a man she has never laid eyes on. Her hapless husband tries desperately to subdue her into submission. Ada's resolute refusal enrages him so much he hacks off her finger.

"There is a great deal of courage required in the passionate path," Campion says. "Passion is about taking risks, and that's very important in any life."

In an époque of repression, Ada embraces sexuality. George Baines (Harvey Keitel) is an illiterate settler who wrests sexual favours from Ada by holding her beloved piano hostage. "Lift up your skirt," he orders. "Undo your dress." But before long, George's desire has catapulted from a physical craving to a spiritual need. "I want you to care for me," the wretched man moans.

In Holy Smoke, Ruth Barron (Kate Winslet) is a modern-day Australian on a spiritual quest in India, trying to escape a dysfunctional family dominated by boorish men. They lure her back and literally corral her in an isolated hut, into the clutches of a macho American "cult-exiter." P.J. Waters (Keitel again) struts about Ruth in his cowboy boots and aviator shades, boasting he will cure her.  But in less than three days, Ruth's supremely confident sexuality renders him helpless and crazy with love and longing.

"Your physical superiority makes you unkind," he tells her. "I was young once and handsome," he adds pleadingly to the girl who has mocked his dyed hair and breath spray.

"Well, I wasn't even born then," she retorts triumphantly.

Campion relishes every opportunity she can find to investigate what she calls "the power of eroticism."

"The body has certain effects, like a drug almost, certain desires for erotic attention."

Nebulous father figures lurk in the shadows of Campion's films - not the obvious autocrat, but rather a dark omnipresent force in the heroine's psyche. Ruth knows the sordid secrets of her father's womanizing. Even on the edge of sanity and lost in her delusions of grandeur, the eponymous central character in Sweetie (Genevieve Lemon) recognizes her father's pathetic ineffectiveness.

"[Sweetie's] father is unable to love her well and was compliant in her illness," Campion says. "Fantasy can be destructive. It's hard to grow up and be real, and come to see things as they are."

The capacity of "seeing" is very important in Campion's films. She studied painting before going to film school and visual cues abound in her work. Nowhere is this more palpable than in The Portrait of a Lady.

The psychological drama of Isabel Archer, a misguided American heiress, unfolds in the gardens and villas of 19^th century Florence and Rome, settings usually associated with bright hues and brilliant sunshine. Instead, Campion's Italy is all darkness and shadow - all, that is, except for Isabel (Nicole Kidman). The camera caresses the blueness of her eyes, the paleness of her skin, making brilliant use of colour to draw us in even deeper into her inner struggle to escape a claustrophobic society and a sadistic husband.

Kidman was originally scheduled to play the lead in her friend Campion's most recent film. In the Cut is a dark thriller about a psychopath who is dismembering women in the gritty neighbourhood where Frannie lives. As the world-weary English teacher gets dangerously close to the murderer, she embarks on an ambiguous, sexually charged relationship with Malloy, a detective on the case.

Malloy has no time for romance; neither does Frannie, hardened by childhood memories of a rakish father who seduced and abandoned women mercilessly.

"They want love," Campion says about Frannie and Malloy. "They just don't trust it. ... I would say that In the Cut is telling the story of many men and women in Western society, in a culture that completely obsesses and fetishises romance."

Hollywood stars are not immune. In the painful throes of her divorce from Tom Cruise, Kidman decided that the role of Frannie cut too close to the bone. She stayed on the project as a producer, while Meg Ryan jumped at the part - and the chance to work with Campion. She has described it as a life-altering experience.

From Meg Ryan to anonymous fans at the multiplex, so many people relish the risks that Campion is willing to take. And they're chomping at the bit for new movies from her. The reality is they'll have to wait a while yet, while the filmmaker enjoys her sabbatical with husband, Colin Englert, and their beloved daughter, Alice.