The Piano Teacher Reviews

A truely gripping film!

La Pianiste" aka "Piano Teacher" is very strong psychological terror tale about destructed mind, feelings and the reasons behind that. "La Pianiste" doesn't explore violence like "Funny Games" did, but these are very important films and tell about real life and real people. The film is very disturbing psychological study of female who has very severely damaged mind and extremely sick sexual life and habits. Occasionally almost unbearably powerful and extremely harrowing; the final scene made me cringe. Isabelle Huppert is jaw-droppingly excellent as the main character-her performance is only comparable to Suh Yung's performance in "Seom"/"The Isle"(2000).Highly recommended-Michael Haneke is a genius! 4 stars!

Complex psychological drama

this is a complex film about a deeply repressed woman (Isabelle Huppert who plays a piano teacher) and her troubled relationships with her mother and her students at a musical conservatory in Vienna.

director Michael Haneke doesn't flinch from showing disturbing scenes which demonstrate the troubled nature of Huppert's character and some of the causes for her inner demons.

There are many subtle touches - long lingering shots of Huppert's face which shows an incredible ability to simultaneously hide her inner feelings, and yet hint at the turmoil - use of beautifully performed music to simultaneously build tension and illustrate the beauty and perfection the characters try (and mostly fail) to attain in their own lives.

Once you've watched the film, make sure to listen to the specials - particularly Huppert giving an intelligent commentary on some of the key scenes.

This isn't an easy film to watch, and may make your stomach turn at some points, but as a psychological drama and a complex interplay of power and influence of student / teacher and parent / child relationships it's frightening and intelligent in equal measure.

Not for me

Extremely well shot and acted, music wonderful.

Spoiled for me by the way too explicit sex scenes. Not actually necessary for the representation of what the film was about.

Ugly and Pretentious - warning some spoilers

Yes, the acting was good, but the story was absolutely unredeeming. The main character was just laden with one 'perversion' after another until it was so over the top that all connection with reality was gone. It felt like we were supposed to be impressed with the seriousness of the subject matter, but it just came off as fake and pointless. Did the character need to be a voyeur *and* a self-harmer *and* a masochist *and* have weird incestuous feelings for her mother? (I'm sure there were more, I just can't remember them.) By the end of the film, I felt sick. I no more understood the cause of the character's sickness as I did at the start, and I wished I hadn't watched it.

Dark, very dark. Erotic I suppose, but draws eroticism as something dreadful and desperate. Painted against the pressurised world of conservatoire performers and their sublime music, this is a good film but not one to show your mum...

A in-depth, touching and involving study of the sexual proclivities of a repressed piano teacher, played very well indeed by Isabelle Huppert. Brilliant though her acting is though, the main character comes through as essentially unsympathetic, making it hard to engage with on an emotional level. Nevertheless, a very good film technically and worth a watch.

brilliantly intelligent study of a disintegrating woman

this film is deeply intelligent and despite the dismissive reviews printed here will reward anyone interested in psycho-pathology.

it is at times almost impossible to watch, because it deals unflinchingly with someone who is totally damaged and unable to cope with the demands that a budding relationship makes of her. this is someone who is half-formed and half-dead simultaneously. she has never been allowed to develop by her over-bearing mother and this has led to her perverse attempts to stimulate a sense of actually being alive.

the film shows all of this unflinchingly, but not pruriently - it is too painful for that - and the director makes real demands of the audience, so it is not for the faint-hearted.

the results are genius as far as i am concerned, however, and huppert gives the performance of a life-time. the acting is excellent all round in fact. any one interested in psychology should see this, as it provides a prime example of the effects of 'narcissistic wounding'.

i found it very moving personally and when the credits rolled in the cinema where i saw it the audience sat in stunned silence for some time afterwards. it is a very powerful experience.

This film requires a whole different category. It's by no means a 'bad' film but I don't think you could love it. The classical music and the acting are superb but the main character is so left field once you delve into the darkness of her soul that more than once I was tempted to switch off. Initially she is an accessible character although clearly uptight and repressed but as the film continues you feel more and more distant. Def worth a watch if you like films on the edge but not for the faint of heart. You've been warned.

[Highly rated reviewer]

The Piano Teacher

Erika Kohut (Huppert) is in her late thirties, works as a professor teaching piano at an exclusive school for talented musicians, but still lives at her home with her overbearing mother (Girardot). It's only when a student (Magimel) falls in love with and begins pursuing her that Erika starts to come out of her shell confessing her extreme desires to him.

The Piano Teacher is not a film you could imagine being in English, the UK and American industries lack people brave enough to confront subject matter like this.

Erika Kohut is fantastic character and one that the audience will be torn in their sympthies for, she does things that are just unforgivable, she's often wilfully a bitch (witness the excruciating first sex scene, 11 minutes of the coldest sexual content ever seen on screen) but she's also jsut looking for acceptance, from her mother, from her lover, from herself. It's a complex and challenging job to inhabit a character like this and Isabelle Huppert is simply outstanding, vanishing within the character. It was a well deserved Best Actress prize that she won at Cannes. Most of her best moments are silent, particularly a heartbreaking moment where she lays out her bondage gear for Magimel, like a little girl opening her toybox for a friend.

Magimel also impresses with an equally complex character. What really works for the film though is that you can see why, beyond the physical, these two are interested in one another. It's also worth noting that both Huppert and Magimel obviously do all their own piano playing throughout and very impressive both are.

The scenes between Huppert and Annie Girardot as her nightmarish mother keep up the high standard, notably an outstanding moment that borders on incestuous.

Haneke toys with the audience, juxtaposing the beauty of the classical music that permeates the film with horrific moments of self harm, assault and pornogaphy. This gives the film an unsettling edge as you never know what the next troubling image is going to be. It's never gratuitous though, it's all in the service of portraying one of the most authentically damaged characters yet put on screen.

The Piano Teacher is never going to have mainstream appeal but if you can deal with some tough images you'll be transfixed by the acting and impressed by Haneke's strong, controlled direction.

This is a thought provoking film that deals with human themes that the French are brillant at

making movies about. The story throws up many questions about the price of success in a

chosen field, in this case, music; and the conscequences of overbearing parents, who push

there offspring to far, to the detrement of other things in life. The film is a tragic tale of

middle age piano teacher who embarks on doomed relationship with one of her pupils. It

contains sexual scenes, but they are by no means erotic or gratuitous. It is also quite

violent towards the end. I would only recommend this film if like French cinema with this

kind of content.