Review of The Piano Teacher (2001) by Robyn N — 14 Feb 2013

In Michael Haneke's "The Piano Teacher,"--which won three awards at Cannes 2001 (best actress, actor and film), Isabelle Huppert plays the role of a bold, conflicted woman Erika Kohut. Erika is approaching middle age-a highly respected and equally demanding instructor at a conservatory of music in Vienna. Erika is stone cold--distant, unsmiling, she leads a secret life of self-mutilation. She lives with her domineering mother and sleeps in the same bed with her. Their strange relationship is a back-and-forth exchange, one is combative and the other a victim, vice versa.

When Erika arrives home she is immediately subjected to her mother's demanding questions. We quickly realize Erika is completely manipulated and owned by her mother's invasive possessiveness. Instantly she resorts to behaving like a child, or a rebellious teenager-at best. Her mother (a chillingly unsympathetic Annie Girardot), complains and is bitter about money Erika is squandering. Pleading, shouting, and violence is followed by brief tearful apologies-- it is obviously a well-worn habitual pattern. She intrusively rings Erika when she is rehearsing, and apparently has no life of her own.

Walter (Benoît Magimel) is a handsome, self-assured student who auditions for her class and is forthright in his attraction to her. She responds coldly then demands he let her lead. Next, she changes the game with a letter, inviting him into her dark, twisted fantasies. The sex scenes within the movie, while not graphic--are long, involved and psychologically brutal. The movie goes to a place of mad masochism. At a certain point we begin to feel that the director, the characters, and the actors will go anywhere--no boundaries. Erika is not simply an adventuress, or a sexual experimenter. Psychologically Erika is a train wreck. Walter's dreams about being with an experienced older woman have now turned into nightmares about interactions and possible scenarios he doesn't even want to think about.

Erika is a respected professor at the prestigious Vienna conservatory who just happens to spend her free time visiting pornography dens, and mutilating her genitals. The women is a ticking time bomb that's on the verge of exploding at any given point. Some audience members will dislike the ending, but with a film like this, any conventional ending would be a cop-out. Ultimately, "The Piano Teacher" is a portrait of a woman in power coming undone right before our very eyes.