TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES
Isabelle Huppert, European |
© mk2 distribution
The Piano Teacher
La Pianiste
Michael Haneke
2001 - Germany / France / Austria - 2h11
int. -16 ans
Screenings :
saturday 27 - 4:30 pm - Pathé - 1 - presented by Isabelle Huppert - actress
Forty-something Erika Kohut, is a piano teacher at the Vienna Conservatoire. To escape the clutches of her mother, with whom she lives in isolation, she secretly goes to pornographic cinemas and peep-shows. Her sexuality is reduced to morbid voyeurism and the masochistic mutilations she inflicts on herself. Erika's life is empty. Until the day one of her pupils sets out to seduce her...
“Isabelle Huppert gives the performance of her life as Erika, a piano teacher who could have been destined for greatness as a performer. When she is not politely terrorising her pupils or meekly following the path laid out for her by high society, Erika explores a secret world of perverse desires.
Director Douglas Sirk said of Barbara Stanwyck that she had the gift of standing still in front of the camera. Huppert also has that immaculate poise, but adds a deeply disturbing element – a slight nervous tremor, an unshakeable tension that comes from the interplay between fierce repression and savage desire. Since there can be no public liberation for Erika, she turns her complexes inward. La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher) coldly details the horrific private wounds that Erika inflicts on herself, culminating in a pre-concert gesture that few viewers will ever forget. Haneke, whose work is sometimes dry and schematic, has never been concerned with the vulgar sensations of narrative intrigue. But here, in adapting Elfriede Jelinek's 1983 novel, he extends his strict control over the medium and its ability to tell stories. Fiction enters the film with the arrival of Walter (Benoît Magimel), a charismatic student fatally in love with the untouchable Erika. The big question is what will Erika want from him? From the moment Erika and Walter meet (in a toilet, of course), La Pianiste launches into a relentless demonstration of how the sexual desires of a man and a woman can combine and influence each other (...).” (Adrian Martin; filmcritic.com.au)
Director Douglas Sirk said of Barbara Stanwyck that she had the gift of standing still in front of the camera. Huppert also has that immaculate poise, but adds a deeply disturbing element – a slight nervous tremor, an unshakeable tension that comes from the interplay between fierce repression and savage desire. Since there can be no public liberation for Erika, she turns her complexes inward. La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher) coldly details the horrific private wounds that Erika inflicts on herself, culminating in a pre-concert gesture that few viewers will ever forget. Haneke, whose work is sometimes dry and schematic, has never been concerned with the vulgar sensations of narrative intrigue. But here, in adapting Elfriede Jelinek's 1983 novel, he extends his strict control over the medium and its ability to tell stories. Fiction enters the film with the arrival of Walter (Benoît Magimel), a charismatic student fatally in love with the untouchable Erika. The big question is what will Erika want from him? From the moment Erika and Walter meet (in a toilet, of course), La Pianiste launches into a relentless demonstration of how the sexual desires of a man and a woman can combine and influence each other (...).” (Adrian Martin; filmcritic.com.au)
CAST AND CREW
Cast : Isabelle Huppert, Annie Girardot, Benoît Magimel, Susanne Lothar, Udo Samel, Anna Sigalevitch
Screenplay : Michael Haneke
Cinematography : Christian Berger
Sound : Guillaume Sciama
Editing : Nadine Muse, Monika Willi
Production : Wega Film, MK2 Productions, Les Films Alain Sarde
French distributor : Diaphana