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LA PIANISTE (2001)(The Piano Teacher)Director: Michael Haneke Starring:
Provoking cheers and boos and netting three awards at Cannes in May, La Pianiste tells the story of Erika Kohut, a Viennese piano teacher. Throughout the beginning of the film, the character is presented to us as an icy and emotionless individual – the only flashes of passion appearing during the arguments with her domineering and possessive mother, with whom Kohut, although in her early forties, still lives. She is unnecessarily strict with her students, arousing the viewer’s suspicions somewhat as sadistic pleasures are taken in small doses with put-downs and criticisms. Our suspicions are confirmed when we see the character enter a sex shop to view pornographic videos from a booth, going as far as to retrieve a soiled tissue from the floor and hold it to her nose with an expression on her face as passionless as those she offers her students. This facet of her character is revealed further in a series of similarly sordid situations, the most shocking of which involves Kohut sitting in an empty bath with underwear discarded, a razor blade and mirror. Into her life steps Walter, a young piano student who becomes obsessed with her cold nature, her talent and her unreachable demeanour. In one of the film’s most powerful scenes, the director’s camera lingers on Kohut’s face as she witnesses Walter’s audition for her class. Although almost motionless, the passion, fear, anger and lust that Huppert manages to convey from somewhere behind her eyes is incredible.
As Huppert herself has commented on the movie: "It's the story of a woman who never really became a woman. She has become a woman to all appearances, but in her domestic universe she has remained a little girl." This is something that is so pathetic to watch on screen, in that whilst she is clearly a terrible woman who takes out her fears and frustration with the aid of small acts of cruelty, it is also difficult not to feel pity for her and her predicament. A modern day tragedy, this film is difficult to watch and left this reviewer feeling emotionally drained. It is sparse, it is bleak, it isn’t particularly heart warming. It is however beautifully filmed with an at times spine tingling use of music and Huppert’s portrayal of self-loathing and emotional detachment is a wonder to behold. MARC BLACKIE – 2 December 2001 |
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I
have never been able to align myself with what I see as being the peculiar
notion that fetishism and sado-masochism are the subjects of comedy. Continually
puzzled by the mainstream media’s interpretation of these sexual
practises as being "a little bit cheeky" perhaps and the fetish
clubs themselves using images of gurning females brandishing riding crops
and dressed in outfits that are "a little bit naughty", it occurs
that possibly those peddling these images would do well to ponder Isabelle
Huppert in Michael Haneke's La Pianiste.
After
a particularly spiteful act of cruelty on one of her young female students,
she yields to Walter’s advances in a public toilet. Yet the course
of love does not run smoothly and the younger student is rebuffed and
told that he must wait until he receives her instructions on how their
play shall be performed. These instructions leave Walter repulsed and
contemptuous of his former object of passion and conversely cause his
former teacher’s barriers to fall, reducing her to a pathetic, desperate
and lonely creature with an ambition to excel at the piano (something
which she herself hasn’t managed as she is yet a teacher and not
a performer) at the expense of other joys, passions and emotions.
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