The Piano Teacher (2001)

'The Piano Teacher' is the third Haneke movie I've seen. I didn't like the other two ('Funny Games' I thought was a cop out and 'Code Unknown' a bore) so I expected little from this one. However I was wrong to prejudge it. It's a very good movie, powerful, thought provoking and features a superb performance from Isabelle Huppert. She plays a Erika Kohut, a brilliant but highly repressed pianist. Walter Klemmer (Benoit Magimel) is a young man who is very sure of himself who attempts to seduce her. The thing is she is a deeply disturbed individual and he can't cope when her true nature is uncovered. I don't want to go into any great detail about Erika or her mental state. The movie reveals this slowly and beautifully. I was impressed that there was no attempt at pop psychology or pat explanations that you would expect in a Hollywood melodrama with similar subject matter. Huppert is extraordinary throughout. I can't think of many contemporary Hollywood actresses who could have played this role as convincingly. 'The Piano Teacher' is not for those who can't face the dark side of human nature. It's far from being a life affirming "feel good" movie. If the difficult subject matter of 'Irreversible' or 'The War Zone' interested you then this is your kind of movie. I can't say I "enjoyed" it, but it was a worthwhile, rewarding experience and how often do you get to say that these days?

Fmovies: Isabelle Huppert must be one of the greatest actresses of her or any other generation. "La Pianiste" truly confirms it. As if that wasn't enough, Annie Girardot plays her mother and Annie Girardot is one of the greatest actresses of her or any other generation. So, as you may well imagine, those pieces of casting are worth the horror we're put through. Isabelle and Annie play characters we've never seen before on the screen. A mother and daughter yes but with such virulent fearlessness that sometimes I was unable even to blink or to breath. Personally, I don't believe in the director's intentions, I don't believe they (the intentions that is) go beyond the shocking anecdote and the ending made me scream with frustration but I was riveted by the story written in the face of the sensational Huppert and the fierceness of Girardot's strength. I highly recommend it to cinema lovers anywhere and to the collectors of great performances like me, you can't afford to miss "La Pianiste"

Definitely NOT for the faint-of-heart or for those seeking passive entertainment, this film is a masterpiece of portraiture of a highly talented and disturbed artist – a perfect illustration of the idea that genius is considered but a short step from insanity.

It has been many months since I viewed this film, and I find myself turning the film over in my head quite often. That – to me – is the mark of a well-done film – or any work of art, for that matter.

I have never since seen a prodigiously talented performer without wondering what their day-to-day life and relationships must be like. This film stayed with me despite my revulsion to its "ugliness" – the discomfiture it engenders.

Highly recommended!

The Piano Teacher fmovies. As with all Haneke films, make your own decision--don't be swayed by what you read and if you are interested in someone using the medium of film for their own unique ends, see it yourself. Isabelle Huppert is stunning in this film--combined with Haneke, these two never pull their punches. Haneke reels us in with the lure of golden boy, Benoit Magimel, but this is an anti-romance as much as Funny Games was an anti-thriller. You'll have to force yourself to watch much of it and the catharsis is much more in the range of sustained anxiety than any kind of emotional release but it's incredibly nervy and thought provoking; Haneke continues to hold up a mirror to how desensitised Western civilization is or has become. People may turn their noses up at this but it's only taking what Solondz did in Happiness a few steps further. While grounded in reality, much of what Erika (Huppert) does can be viewed as emotional metaphor. I'm not recommending it but I wouldn't dissuade you either...it definitely divides people but given it's largely about repression--that's no surprise.

I saw this film at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival. La Pianiste reinforces the "Austrians=grim" thesis I'm formulating. Isabelle Huppert won a well-deserved Best Actress award at Cannes for her portrayal of a woman who, in her efforts to attain the artistic ideal, loses her humanity. Trapped by her talent, she suppresses her emotions and her sexuality until they can only be expressed in twisted and terrifying ways. When a younger student falls in love with her, our hopes rise, but are soon dashed by the realization that she cannot experience love the way others can. It is too late for her, and the film's final 30 harrowing minutes are, tellingly, devoid of the beautiful music that carried the first 90 minutes. The message seems to be that the music itself is not enough without the life and beauty it's describing.

The Metaphysics of Self-Denial. This comment is bound to provoke some controversy by disagreeing with those who have easily classified this film as an indictment of sexual repression and self-denial. Michael Haneke (as a film-maker) and brilliant Isabelle Huppert (as the music professor Erika Kohut) place sexual relationships within a larger frame of reference -- that of the boundaries of one's own SELF.

Erika is a highly intelligent, perfectionistic, ambitious and driven woman, who has single-mindedly and relentlessly identified her whole self with her work and achievement. In a sense, she is madly competitive and is painfully sensitive to any kind of attempt to "sideline" her or, even more importantly, to take her and her opinions for granted. She is no puppet in anyone's theatre. She is unpredictable and that's one of her major instruments of self-assertion. She is overly harsh on everybody surrounding her -- you need a pair of plyers to pull the most modest words of praise from her tight mouth. Observe Erika's body language in the film: accentuated pride, not an insignificant dose of aplomb and even snobbishness, cold sternness, and extremely caustic sense of humor.

But look more carefully: Erika is most harsh towards herself. Unimaginably and cruelly harsh on herself! Erika's fear of sex is not just a function of her mother's repression and other hackneyed reasons examined in thousands of other movies. Erika is first and foremost obsessed with what entering into any kind of a relationship, be it casual sexual intercourse or an enduring love affair, means to her sense of personal independence. She is prepared to forego relationships and suffer as a consequence, rather than to "succumb" and be forever unsure of whether she had given in or emerged on top. She experiences all human relationships, and sexual ones above all else, as a field of power play, of asymmetrical exchange of influences. And there is one thing she apparently cannot withstand at all -- and that's a thought, yes -- just a thought!, of yielding. Her world is truly stark and Gothic, it's a world of maximalist and dramatic choices -- yes or no, on top or on the bottom, bright or dark. She craves the most violent contrasts and cannot stand living in the zones of shades of grey. She understands only super- or subordination in the purest of forms.

Many would probably be correct to argue that Erika's obsession with remaining beyond anybody's influences is in many ways an outcome of her total mental slavery to her mother. And this is obviously a valid point. But the film's posing of the problem of sex in explicit power-related terms, in terms of a power game with fluid rules and irredeemably uncertain outcomes should be the primary focus of analysis. The Piano Teacher's finale is resounding in its relentless dramatism and even stoicism. Erika's conscious pursuit of emotional self-denial for the sake of what she deems her true (and avaricious) God -- self-sufficiency and professional greatness reveals that there is her war with her own humanity and her attempt to become godlike (as one poet said, 'eternal, cold and true'). Her God is completely indifferent to her sufferings and human flaws and needs -- He demands constant sacrifices, demonstrations of loyalty (not unlike Abraham's readiness to slay his own son Isaac at the Almighty's behest). In that sense, her character is not totally unlike the character of the obsessive and self-destructive chess player Ale