X
- 2002
- R
- Kino International
- 2 h 11 m
- 2002
- R
- Kino International
- 2 h 11 m
Summary Erika is a piano teacher at a prestigious music school in Vienna. In her early forties and single, she lives with her overprotective and controlling mother. Lonely and alienated, Erika finds solace by visiting sex shops and experimenting with masochism. [Kino International]
Directed By: Michael Haneke
Written By: Elfriede Jelinek, Michael Haneke
- 2002
- R
- Kino International
- 2 h 11 m
- 2002
- R
- Kino International
- 2 h 11 m
The Piano Teacher
79
8.3
Where to Watch
Summary Erika is a piano teacher at a prestigious music school in Vienna. In her early forties and single, she lives with her overprotective and controlling mother. Lonely and alienated, Erika finds solace by visiting sex shops and experimenting with masochism. [Kino International]
Directed By: Michael Haneke
Written By: Elfriede Jelinek, Michael Haneke
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
79
88% Positive
23 Reviews
23 Reviews
12% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
79
88% Positive
23 Reviews
23 Reviews
12% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Powerful and outrageous.
At once an emotional thriller and a domestic horror movie -- a woman's picture with a vengeance, in which the bloodletting is kept to a minimum, and ends up all the more powerful and profound for it.
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 83 User Ratings
8.3
89% Positive
74 Ratings
74 Ratings
8% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
2% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 83 User Ratings
8.3
89% Positive
74 Ratings
74 Ratings
8% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
2% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
This was a difficult watch but definitely worth it. Haneke expresses the dangers of both repression and complete devotion to craft through these characters whose actors give such incredible performances. I'm going to need more than a hot take to fully absorb what Haneke is trying to say with this film, but on the surface level alone there are some beautifully shot and performed piano sequences as well as oppositely horrifying scenes performed so genuinely. The range of abilities on display by these two actors (Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel) is shocking in the best way. I will definitely be seeking out more of Haneke's films, Huppert's performances, and Magimel's performances in the future.
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Well, I had seen "Cache" from this director which held my attention all the way through, and which I loved. This is one of his earlier films which proved to be even more challenging for me, and which some prudish Americans will detest because it is a film that is obviously in the more liberal European (character driven vs. plot driven) tradition. However, let me just say that the acting from Huppert is superb. I watched the interview with her after the film, and the transformation she underwent for this looks similar to Charlize in "Monster", truly amazing. The story is one which is very unique and held my attention for the entire 125 minutes, which is definitely a rarity for late night film watching, especially these days. The character Huppert plays is sick obviously, but it is the process of her performance in which her character unfolds like an onion that makes for a wonderful story here, and makes the ending obvious.
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Haneke has made a masterly, disturbing movie.
A seriously scandalous work, beautifully made, and it deserves a sizable audience that might argue over it, appreciate it -- even hate it. [1 April 2002, p. 98]
Although little is ultimately “solved” or demystified in The Piano Teacher, the movie allows a chaperoned peek into the mind of one of civilization's “discontents.”
A squirmingly strange and brutal study of sexual power, masochism and mother-daughter madness.
This is a psychological study that rejects psychology, an erotic drama of surpassing coldness, and a story of amour fou in which the madness is calculated and the love frozen.
Ambiguity and subtlety (though not the same thing) is apparently a struggle for some people to deal with. I'm talking of course about some people giving this film negative reviews on here. The Piano Teacher doesn't give us easy answers, which should be expected from Michael Haneke. What it does give us though, is perfect.
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The Piano Teacher was a very shocking movie. I definitely was not expecting it to be so disturbing. The main character, Erica (played fantastically by Isabelle Huppert), gradually emerged and showed herself to be a very flawed and messed up person, which was beautiful to watch thanks to Michael Haneke's brilliant directing and script.
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La Pianiste
A piano teacher that works in a conservatory, still lives with her mother even with her advanced age and is heavily repressed by the mom, she tries to escape of that repression in different ways, and when one of her students start to fall in love for her, she sees one possibility to change things, wich is full of surprises. Directed and written by Michael Haneke.
This movie is really heavy and disturbing in many ways, ant it doesn't try to hide it in any way, it doesn't try to camouflage it and calmly deliver the story in the way that it is supposed to be, like other movies do, in La Paniste, since the very beginning from the movie we can already have a nice image of how things gonna go, and it is troublesome in a familiar way and in a psychologically that automatically ends up affecting physically as well, this is definely not for everybody, it is a rough journey. The narrative is, yes, calmly giving away the level of the disturbing, so you know since the beginning that it isn't a convetional movie, but it easily give to us how much of it is in here, and a little by a little we got surprises by how much affected the mind of the character really is and how she deal with it, inch by inch things got a little darker, as soon as you start to see how does the character of Erika deal with some situations, where does she go, and what she do, things can get even creepy, she went to sex shops and porn cinemas, or wathever that was, doing things that is sad, simply sad and strane at least. While things get on and you see what kind of relationship she wants, you kind of get as surprise as the character, and his reaction is disappointment, and how he deal with this is just horrible, and things, that already was been very graphics, got even more, and maybe, just maybe, a bit to much. They were pretty good in showing how desperate she was, the development of her character is great, you see the sadomasochism in action with her, and also the necessity and ampare, where she would do anything for someone that says that love her, because she needs to escape.
I think that this movie is important for us to notice how inconceivable mind situations can be and reach, i think that it got pretty obvious in the movie that the way that her mother controls her in everything, a thing that probably happens since forever, is what have caused the disturbances in Erika mind, someone that get controlled and disrespected during her whole life by some terrible ways will surely get situations in the brain where it will hurt and suffer a lot, the mother controlling what she dresses, what time she goes to where, screaming and attacking, Erika surely feels tied in by that house and that woman, her mind is painful and very noisy, wich is why i believe that she have chosen the career of a musician, because when you are hearing loud things, the voices that comes and goes in the mind got a bit muffled, so it is easier to relax and in concentrate in something else. This together with the pain in the body, a lot of people cut themselves, so as the character of Erika that sometimes during the course of the movie hurt herself physically, this happens clearly for the same reason, for the pain in the skin and in the flesh be so big for then, somehow, hide the pain in the mind, because she is already tired of it and can't stand living with it the whole time. All of this happens without people in her day to day life notice anything, there are just emotion situation that you can get from her, wich would be, angry and perhaps a bit of antipathy, together with all of it was already said, all caused by the situation in her home.
Isabelle Huppert is amazing, she can express so much with so little, she in a lot of moments don't really need to speak to say something, i think she was able to pass that idea of traumatized with her eyes, and small expressions, like a pokerface with a background full of sad things, in other moments that she actually talk, she can be emotional less with other people, not giving empathy to others, or really bossy, saying things that you actually believe, or in other moments a regret that you can say that it is a bit exaggerated, but it is intentional, because in her mind that was all of what could "free" her, she was fantastic and scary. Benoît Magimel at first is just a boy who likes and play well paino, yet he starts to be very charming with Erika, very dominated by her, and then he became something completely out of mind, he is scary and nasty in a not predictable way, he was also very good. Annie Girardot can be also very scary and mean, so as at the same time, kind of caring, it is complex.
The music and the mise-en-scène in this movie is just fabulous, things are so well putted to give an alive and complete aspect to each place.
A movie that surely runs out from the standard movies that we have seen.
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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 named Erika Kohut. Erika is approaching middle age-she is a highly respected and equally demanding instructor at the conservatory of music in Vienna. Erika is stone cold--distant, unsmiling, she leads a secret life of self-mutilation. In the classroom she sits without emotion, but listens attentively to her students. She doesn't want to help her students however--she wants to destroy them.
Erika lives with her domineering mother, who is immediately subjected to her mother's demanding questions the minute she walks through the door. We quickly realize Erika is completely manipulated and owned by her mother's invasive possessiveness. Instantly Erika resorts to behaving like a child, or a rebellious teenager at best. They both sleep in the bed together. 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--and it is obvious that this is a well-worn habitual pattern. She intrusively rings Erika when she is rehearsing, and apparently has no life of her own. Enter Walter Klemmer (Benoît Magimel), who 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. Then she changes the role with a detailed letter, inviting him into her dark, twisted fantasies. The sex scenes within the movie, while not graphic, are long, uncomfortable--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 take this anywhere--there are no boundaries. Erika is not simply an adventuress, or a sexual experimenter--Erika is a psychological train wreck. Walter's dreams and thoughts about an experienced older woman have turned into nightmares about interactions and scenarios he doesn't even want to know about.
Erika is a highly 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 disturbing portrait of a woman in power coming undone before our very eyes.
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This is a movie about madness. An uptight, arrogant, caustic piano teacher turns out to be Mrs. Goodbar. We're led to believe she got this way from being under the thumb of a controlling mother, but like Black Swan the madness is too extreme to have come from suppression of the id. At first her madness is fascinating to watch, because her fetish seems to be sexual **** men., but unfortunately the character then disintegrates into a masochist who allows her student to get the upper hand, and let out plenty of his suppressed anger at women. The last half hour is gruesome to watch and we learn nothing about her or the point of the movie. The ending is abrupt and maddeningly teasing. Hubbert is one of my favorite French actresses and I'm sure she took this on for the challenge but once again "madness" on the screen is used to encourage excess rather than insight.
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Production Company
Wega Film,
MK2 Productions,
Les Films Alain Sarde,
ARTE,
Arte France Cinéma,
Bavaria Film International,
Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR),
Canal+,
Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC),
Eurimages,
Filmfonds Wien,
Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF),
Österreichisches Filminstitut
Release Date Mar 29, 2002
Duration 2 h 11 m
Rating R
Tagline Perversion at its wicked best!
Awards
Cannes Film Festival
• 3 Wins & 4 Nominations
Chlotrudis Awards
• 1 Win & 4 Nominations
Russian Guild of Film Critics
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
