I viewed the film Piano Tuner of the Earthquakes last night in Santa Monica, California. It is an incredibly artistic piece, but all that would be lost if it lacked a coherent story of some kind. The entire story, however, is clear once you know what to look for. First of all, what we see is a dream by the narrator Piano Tuner who speaks in the first person describing the events. It is not one night's dream, but a series of dreams, chapters, parts of which he dreams over and over, sometimes having the details change slightly. The theme of the dream is simple: the man who is dreaming has become, in true life, an obstetrician. In real life, he tries to save mothers and infants in childbirth. He tries to make life sing through their souls, and thus sees himself as a Piano Tuner. His recurring dreams arise from the fact that in his own childbirth, his mother, in the course of her convulsing labor (the earthquakes), died. He remembers this event as an earthquake and sees himself as the cause of her death. The young opera singer represents his dead mother. The older woman in the story represents the conscience or consciousness of his mother as she speaks to him from the grave. The man who hired the Piano Tuner probably represents inevitable death, or the plain fact of history which will not change. The Piano tuner tries again and again to save his mother, without success.
To me, having seen it once and never having heard anything about the film prior to viewing the movie, that's the story. It was definitely worth the film experience to step into this complex world.
Jack Forbes
To me, having seen it once and never having heard anything about the film prior to viewing the movie, that's the story. It was definitely worth the film experience to step into this complex world.
Jack Forbes