La Pianiste (2001)

Yesterday I watched a 2001 French-Austrian erotic thriller film directed by Michael Haneke called “La Pianiste” (The Piano Teacher) which stars Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel. This film is about a sexually repressed and extremely sheltered forty-something year old piano teacher named Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert), who shares an apartment (and bed) with her domineering and overly strict mother (Annie Girardot) and barely gets any privacy at home or a chance to live a normal life. Her father is not in the picture as he has been a long-standing resident in a psychiatric asylum though he does eventually die. Erika is a “secret” fetishist who has a long list of sadomasochistic fantasies that have never seemed to be fulfilled so she often goes to porn shops to get her temporary fix by watching BDSM porn in private porn rooms. As a job, Erika works as a piano teacher and is a huge appreciator and interpreter of the works of Schumann and Schubert. One day, she meets a charming 17-year old piano student named Walter Klemmer (Benoit Magimel) who is also a fan and a gifted interpreter of Schumann and Schubert and starts flirting with Erika. At first, Erika dismisses his flirting and is not a huge fan of him. That changes, however, when the two of them share a passionate kiss in the bathroom, which ends up not going so well when Erika starts being demanding towards him and humiliates him. Basically, she makes it clear to Walter that the only way they can share a sexual relationship together is if it is entirely on her terms and goes completely her way. Therefore, she gives him a letter of specific instructions consisting of him beating, humiliating, and raping her in her own home. Walter reads the letter out loud next to Erika and starts finding her repulsive and begins feeling disgusted towards her. Feeling embarrassed of the fact that she gave him the letter without them talking about it in the first place, Erika visits Walter at his school and apologizes for the letter while desperately expressing her love towards him. At this point, Walter has lost all interest in Erika though one day he does randomly show up in her apartment and beats and rapes her in the fashion that Erika has desired in the letter, while locking up her mother in the living room. Erika does not seem to enjoy it and feels completely heartbroken and defeated when she sees Walter the next day being cheerful and happy with his family and acting like nothing happened. While he has moved on, she has been traumatized for life so she stabs herself in the shoulder and walks away.

I think the movie was very good and incredibly well acted by all the actors so I will give it a 10/10, though it is not a film I would want to see again only because it was so depressing. I know that this film is based on a book of the same name written by Elfriede Jelinek, but I have not read it so correct me if I am wrong in any of my own interpretations of the film. I felt that a lot of the film had to do with the battle of power and control between Erika and Walter. Both of them seemed to like being in control for the sake of their own ego and interests and in the end Walter won. I do not think Walter actually loved Erika. I think that he was a seducer and needed to have power over her since she was such a huge challenge to him at first. Basically, he enjoyed a good game of “cat and mouse” and once he got what he wanted, he left satisfied and had no further need for her. As for Erika, I think she underestimated Walter and thought that because he expressed such love for her, she found him weak and felt that she could control him and use him to satisfy all her sexual fantasies. However, in the end, it wasn't that way at all since nothing ever works out nicely if all parties involved are selfish. As for the director, Michael Haneke is excellent. I saw both of his own versions of “Funny Games” which I loved and now I have added “La Pianiste” to my collection. I think I will watch “Amour” (2012) next since I see that one has gotten a lot of positive reviews as well!