Review of The Piano Teacher (2001) by Amr M — 10 Jun 2010

Possible spoilers:

Its a very interesting movie about a (I presume) mid-30's-aged piano teacher who is possibly the most evil woman on earth and how a young man actually falls for her. like most Haneke movies, one of the main themes is human cruelty, and the cruelty of this woman and her sick (and hypocritical) fascinations are basically portrayed for the full first hour of this movie, and eventually when it seems her sexual fantasies are beginning to come true with the sudden (but predictable) confessed love of her newest student of her master's class, her cruel uptight manner of handling things seems to get destroyed, and it is here where the true conflict of the film begins. So basically the first hour is build up to the conflict, and the last hour covers the conflict and creates a situation where I didn't know whether to feel sorry for the cruelest woman alive or not. the last five minutes of this film are so suspenseful, that the final scenes are up there with works of Hitchcock; however the majority of the film is slow and it takes a while to truly get interested. Haneke's directing, script, camerawork, and actors are all fantastic; I recommend this film - though its not as impressive as other works he's done.