Movies - The Piano Teacher

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	Movies - The Piano Teacher

The Piano Teacher (French title: La Pianiste) is a 2001 film directed by Michael Haneke, starring Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Maginel. The film, also known as The Piano Player, is based on the novel Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek, Nobel Prize for Literature winner in 2004.

Synopsis

Erika (Isabelle Huppert) is a piano professor at a Vienna music conservatory. Although in her forties, she lives in an apartment with her overprotective and controlling mother (Annie Girardot). Lonely and alienated, she has an unhealthy love-hate relationship with her mother, while her undepicted father is dying in a mental asylum. She is first-rate teacher but cruel to her students, even attempting to ruin a talented girl. Behind the prudish facade, she is a sexually repressed woman with a long list of strange behavior. Upon meeting a charming engineering student in his twenties, she becomes obsessed with Walter (Benoît Magimel), who is also a capable performer and shares in her appreciation for Schubert. However, when she finally agrees to a relationship with the insistent young man, he is unable to accept her sado-masochistic fantasies. After an unsatisfying attempt, the two returns to their lives as if nothing had changed.

Review

The Piano Teacher is a humanistic psychological portrait of Erika, both as a monster and a heroine. It can be interpreted as feministic, depicting the rebellion of one who lacks social, sexual, and cultural power, as well as making a broader statement against the society as a whole. In a bathroom encounter described as the strangest sex scene in the history of movies by The New York Times, a battle for dominance and control challenges the typical sexual roles. The failure of the relationship due to Walter's inability to follow Erika's directions highlights the difficulties in getting a dominate social figure to relinquish his power.

Erika's madness parallels that of her favorite composers. The movie is basically about her self-annihilation in the pursuit of art, but it's also about human degradation in general. It is explicit without being sensationalistic, drawing on desires that are more mental than physical.

Awards

Won

2001 Cannes Film Festival

Grand Jury Prize
Best Actor - Benoît Magimel
Best Actress - Isabelle Huppert

2001 European Film Academy

Best European Actress - Isabelle Huppert

2001 French Academy of Cinema

Best Supporting Actress - Annie Girardot

2002 L.A. Film Critics Association

Best Actress (Runner-up) - Isabelle Huppert

2002 National Society of Film Critics

Best Actress (Runner-up) - Isabelle Huppert

Nominated

2001 British Academy Awards

Best Foreign Language Film - Michael Haneke
Best Foreign Language Film - Veit Heiduschka

2001 European Film Academy

Best European Film
Best European Screenplay - Michael Haneke

2001 French Academy of Cinema

Best Actress - Isabelle Huppert

2002 Independent Spirit Award

Best Foreign Film

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Piano Teacher ]

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