Product: La Pianiste (Original French Version)
Rating: 4.0
Debasement, Debauchery, Deceitfulness! What A Daunting Film!
"The Piano Teacher" is the story of Erika Kohut (a once in a lifetime role, perfectly played by French actress, Isabelle Huppert) is a renowned piano professor at the Vienna Conservatory, a top-notch prestigious music school in Vienna.Erika, in her early forties and still painfully single, lives and even sleeps in the same bed with her vicious, overprotective and sadistic controlling mother (played aptly by Annie Girardot, however the part was initially offered to the fabulous Jeanne Moreau).Erika is a complex human being to say the least. Besides the fact that she is playing host to a many colored different lifestyle by acting as the "man of the house", Erika is utterly and deeply sexually repressed. When things in Erika's tiny, cloistered life get too horribly awful for her own self-expression and outpouring of feelings, she resorts to sexual self-mutilation, voyeurism, porn shops, and her own underworld of unspeakable acts on other human beings besides herself.Then... Erika meets Walter Klemmer (Benoit Magimel), a engineering student-cum-talented pianist who signs on to Erika's "Master Class" that she teaches at conservatory. Walter is struck by the singularly quiet but strong, Erika and he lets his feelings be known. However, Erika "expresses" herself in very "different" ways such as sexual sado-masochism and writes to Walter all the things that she longs for him to "do" to her, all the while, Erika treats Walter like less than a human as she does, most all the people and her own students in her sick, sad and twisted life.The irony of this story is that Erika can only truly express herself and her scant good, beautiful and natural feelings "a priori"- in and through her music, but in really no other way. Her sick and twisted thoughts of man overpowering woman, rape, a sexual relationship with her own mother, self-mutilation, and general sadistic behavior overtake her and in the end... Well, watch and find out for yourself.Really, over and above it all, Erika's jealousy of other human beings who can and DO express their longings, fears, joys, and disappointments get to her in the end. When Erika is finally able to express her feelings and what it is she THINKS that she wants and desires in her sad half-human, base sort of way, she is rejected and thus the end to the tale is quite a sad one...This is probably the most sexually charged movie that I have viewed without any of the cast being the least bit naked. There is no quivering frontal flesh in this fabulous film, only frightful, frigid, fruitless feelings that will cut you to the bone...Careful Viewing Is Required...