Product: La Pianiste (Original French Version)
Rating: 5.0
Descending gracefully into the depths of a private hell
This is a breakthrough movie--but not one that you should undertake watching lightly. The word "harrowing" best describes this descent into hell.If you've never been in a battering relationship, you could never understand why someone would stay around and get beaten up day after day, this film will show you. The battering is mutual and invariably followed by bizarre moments of closeness, apology and even tenderness. In emotionally impoverished and dysfunctional families, this is as good as you get, so you go for it.In this sensitive portrayal, the protagonist professor of piano technique, Erika, breaks though her deeply repressed sexuality and attempts to experience love for the first time with one of her students. Attempting to work out her internal conflicts, the love should be expressed alternately in sadism (she's gratuitously mean to all her students) or in masochism (what she demands of her lover is pain and humiliation). Since the object of her desire, Walter, is not only attracive and talented, but also seems to care deeply for her, the agony of this movie is much deeper.As to the film itself, at times it moves slowly. But you need the break to recover from the intensity of the major scenes. The performances of piano and vocal music are paradoxically delightful to hear, and this movie should win an Oscar for "best sound" (every creak of a floor board counts).This is a remarkable movie that should be taken seriously and will reward a mature approach.