 | La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher) Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Benoit Magimel, Annie Girardot, Susanne Lothar, Anna Sigalevitch |
Erika Kohut (Huppert) is a gifted pianist and a highly respected piano teacher in one of Vienna's leading musical conservatories. Cultured, intelligent, and thoroughly literate in her music, she demands absolute perfection from her young students. Erika's strict manner is exceeded only by her cruelty. She has a special talent for brow beating her aspiring, young artists into complete submission, reducing them to frightened, quivering disciples of dejection. A 40-ish spinster, Erika's demeanor is icy and without compassion. Even her love of music seems detached and distant. Lunch hours are spent alone, eating a sandwich and staring blankly out of her music room window. Erika shares her life with her doting, domineering mother (Girardot) with whom she shares a small apartment, bedroom and bed. Upon arriving home at night, the piano teacher will face a blaring TV and a cold, angry mother who greets her with contempt and suspicion. Director Michael Haneke ("Funny Games", "Benny's Video") continues to take big risks in his new film, "The Piano Teacher," a dark tale of perversion and insanity. Juxtaposing the lovely piano music of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann with the disturbing actions of Erika, Haneke journeys into hidden corners of the human mind where dangerous desires and personal secrets ferment into total madness. Erika is mentally ill. With few clues as to her motivations, her behaviour remains unpredictable and she becomes a strange mystery throughout the film. After classes, this esteemed, cultured teacher will hide in the small cubicles of Sex Shops and view porno films while sniffing discarded tissues soiled with stale semen. In the quiet of her locked bathroom she will engage in self-mutilation. She wanders the darkened lanes of drive-in movies, urinating next to autos while listening to the groans of excited back seat lovers. Erika manages to deal with these perversions with some semblance of balance but when a brash, young student (Magimel) becomes attracted to her, the lady slowly unravels. Huppert elevates this film to pure brilliance. She will take you through an emotional excursion that will leave you in stunned silence. She will make Erika hateful, disgusting and pathetic while simultaneously commanding compassion and sympathy for this tortured soul. When Erika loses complete control, Huppert risks tearing the movie apart and suddenly, with steely resolve, she brings the narrative back into even sharper focus. With a distinguished list of outstanding performances, Huppert reaches a defining moment in her career as Erika Kohut. As we watch with morbid curiosity, it becomes apparent that we are watching one of the most powerful screen performances by an actress in current cinema. Benoit Magimel, as the young student who naively walks into hell, is outstanding. Huppert and Magimel deservedly won Best Actress and Best Actor awards at Cannes. Yet, it is Huppert, as Erika, that will haunt you forever. Haneke has created a provocative dark masterpiece. One might question if Haneke has gone too far and created a character that is too sick and demented for audiences to identify with in any way. I think not. The most controversial element of "The Piano Teacher" is that there might be something buried deep in all of us that connects us closer to Erika than we would like. This uncomfortable thought will linger long after the film. |