(M) La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher) [2001, Michael Haneke]
Grade: B-/C+
Film based on a novel by I believe to be Elfriede Jelinek. I hear the novel is far more twisted than the film which makes me want to read the novel. I don't really know how to sum this up so I don't take up 5 pages here because this movie is one of those "talk about when it's over" films. To sum up as quickly as I can, middle age piano teacher (Erika) lives with her mom who is utterly restricting and repressive. Erika is played by Isabelle Huppert (I heart Huckabees, the woman who Jason Schwartzman nails in the mud). Erika hates what she does and hates all her young students who she trains (and she does something rather f'd up to one of them, but in her mind it's to free her I think). You see the pressure the parents put on their children to be GREAT as a pianist and you can tell Erika went through the same thing. One student who she eventually takes on is older than the rest and he is attarcted to Erika.
Erika is alone, single (and probably has been forever) and spends her free time watching porn in adult shops and cutting herself to punish herself from experiencing emotion and she tries to destory her ability to feel anything at all. She decides to become involved with her older student. What she does to him in the bathroom is rather interesting and hints at her twisted thoughts of pleasure. She brings him home and reveals to him what she wants him to do to her (punish her, tie her up, punch her, make her do things I won't type about), she completely opens herself up to him releasing all her deepest desires and passions and he is repulsed and rejects her and leaves. She then goes from a power position to a weak position and pursues him giving him the power role in which he uses. He gives her a brief taste of what she asked for and I think she probably realizes it's not as great in reality as in fantasy. Then when the movie ends something happens and you kind of go 'WHAT THE F' and then the movie is over, leaving you to decide what happens afterwards.
Very intersting, rather twisted in a way. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this movie for a few days now and may watch it again before I send it back, which is rare. In fact this may be a first for that. Anyway. Crazy movie, and I am very interested in reading the more indepth and twisted novel. I wasn't sure how to grade this one.
1 comment:
Here's a summary of the book which may give you some insight to the film.
Sexuality and violence are coupled in this brilliant, uncompromising book set in modern-day Vienna, by the winner of the 1986 Heinrich Boll Prize. Erika Kohut, a spinster in her mid-30s, has been selected by her domineering mother to be sacrificed on the altar of art. Carefully groomed and trained, she's unfortunately not gifted enough to become a concert pianist. Instead, she teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory. She still lives at home, and in the eyes of the world is the dutiful daughter. But there's another, perversely sexual side of Erika that she finds difficult to repress. She goes to a peep show, frequents the local park where Turks and Serbo-Croats pick up women and, just for kicks, slices herself with a razor. When one of her students, Walter Klemmer, falls in love with her, Erika demands sadomasochistic rituals before she'll agree to sleep with him. While the subject matter is deliberately perverse, Jelinek gets behind the cream-puff prettiness of Vienna; this novel is not for the weak of heart. Violence is a cleansing force, a point that brings back uncomfortable overtones of an Austria 50 years ago.
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