Product: La Pianiste (Original French Version)
Rating: 5.0
Happiness and pain
This film is so stunning and indescribable! I have never known such joy and excitement watching a new release!Isabelle Huppert is playing one of her best roles here. She is undeniably the best actress in the world.You just need to look at her face in this film to comprehend that. Yes, she never plays the role: she is the character, she lives the character, she feels the character.She is deeply moving in this role. A cold, reserved, distant woman, yet so vulnerable, so tormented!The contrast between her face and her emotions is amazing, fascinating.Loneliness, despair, madness, anger, fear, pain, uncertainty, sadness...Her cruelty and indifference are amazing when she makes her students suffer, and her vulnerability and puerility are even more striking when it's her turn to suffer.The best scene takes place in her bedroom, when she locks herself up with her beloved, handsome student, ignoring her poor mother who is spying outside.She forces him to read a long letter, a letter that she has written and given him earlier, after the piano lesson.The absurd thing is that she insists on hearing the letter read to her, in which she describes what she expects him to do to her, in full details.What a more horrible thing to request from a young man you love!First, he seems embarrassed, surprised, amused. He reads it mockingly as she watches his face inquisitively, intensely, like a child hearing a story for the first time.He cannot believe what he's reading, the innocent young student.No, he refuses to believe her sickening requests. She wants him to humiliate her, to degrade her, to be cruel, to torture, to hurt, strike, rape.He cannot believe it. No, no, his beautiful and respectful teacher would not want such a thing. Besides, he loves her too much to hurt her. He shakes his head, bewildered. To prove that she is not joking, she pulls out her 'torture' tools from under her bed. She shows them to him, proudly and naively, and assures him she is serious.As he reads further, he is shocked, angry, disappointed, disgusted, and walks out of her apartment rapidly.Although there is no violence nor sex in this scene, the impact is heartbreaking, and leaves you breathless.The absurdity, the tension, the intimacy, the gaze, the provocation, allow you to imagine what might happen to her if he obeys her order, something even more frightening, more sadistic, more violent, more erotic, more painful, than the reality itself.It's based on the controversial novel by Elfriede Jelinek, an Austrian writer. The book is even more powerful than the film. If you love the film, you absolutely have to read the book. It's like seeing the film again, and still, the impact is tremendous. There's more in-depth analysis of the characters with a striking style from the author.The philosophical and psychological observations, the wild images are so detailed, so vivid, so absurd, so sarcastic that they make you cry and laugh at the same time.It is a passionate book and a frightening one. All the strongest emotions are in here, with beautiful classical piano for music lovers.Classical music lovers might not agree on the beauty of this book. Classical music is supposed to elevate our mortal souls, isn't it? But here it degrades the musician's soul. How can we tolerate such a thing?Yes, it degrades here, but it's how reality is. Classical music creates the strongest human emotions, and why not torment, suffering, degradation, the passion and pleasure of hurting and being hurt?