The Piano Teacher

Starring: Annie Girardot, Isabelle Huppert Director: Michael Haneke Original UK Premiere: 2001 Dvd Release: 27th May, 2002 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Subtitled, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding Subtitled In: English

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The Piano Teacher is a 2001 film directed by Michael Haneke, starring Isabelle Huppert & Benoit Maginel. The film, also known as The Piano Player, is based on the novel Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek, Nobel Prize for Literature winner in 2004. Erika is a sexually repressed piano professor in Vienna who is approaching spinsterhood & lives with her mother. When a student tries to seduce her, she agrees, but on her terms. The relationship ends unhappily when she reveals her extreme masochistic desires to him, which brings the relationship to an end, but not before he has made a disgusted attempt to enact his conception of her masochistic fantasies. 2001 Cannes Film Festival 2001 European Film Academy Best European Actress - Isabelle Huppert. 2001 French Academy of Cinema Best Supporting Actress - Annie Girardot. 2002 L,A. Film Critics Association 2002 National Society of Film Critics 2001 British Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film - Michael Haneke. Best Foreign Language Film - Veit Heiduschka. 2001 European Film Academy Best European Screenplay - Michael Haneke.

An unexpected critical & commercial success on its release in 2001, The Piano Teacher is a provocative, but ultimately frustrating, film. The intensifying relationship between Erika Kohut, a Viennese piano teacher whose musical focus is gradually undone by sexual repression, & Walter Klemmer, her uninhibited but unsuspecting student & admirer, lacks an underlying motivation, either physical or emotional, to sustain the tortuous encounters of the films later stages.

Director Michael Haneke powerfully evokes the claustrophobic décor of the flat that Kohut shares with her dictatorial yet ineffectual mother, with whom her relationship progresses from the pitiful to the farcical. And farce of the blackest kind is what the film descends to, as Kohut & Klemmer play out a vicious game of sado-masochistic control with an intriguing but indecisive conclusion.

Isabelle Huppert is magnificently assured as Kohut, but Benoît Magimel often seems confused as Klemmer, while Annie Girardot resorts to a caricature of the mother. Fans of classical piano will enjoy the masterclass & rehearsal sequences during the first hour, though music is then relegated to a minor role, its deeper relevance to the film being ultimately difficult to define. English subtitles are provided, & the monochrome shades in which the scenes abound come through with suitably wan intensity. Yet its hard not to feel that a more profound inquiry into the darker side of sexual desire has been lost along the way.

Micheal Haneke is a filmmaker & writer best known for his bleak & disturbing style. Born to an actress mother & director father, Haneke attended the University of Vienna to study philosophy & psychology after failing to achieve success in his early attempts in acting & music. After graduating, he became a film critic before making his debut as a television director in 1973. His feature film debut was 1989 s The Seventh Continent, which served to trace out the violent & bold style that would bloom in later years. Hanekes greatest success came in 2001 with his most critically succesful film, The Piano Teacher. The film won the prestigious Grand Prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival & also won its stars, Benoit Magimel & Isabelle Huppert, the Best Actor & Actress awards. 2003 Le Temps du Loup aka The Time of the Wolf. 2000 Code Inconnu. Recit Incomplet De Divers Voyages aka Code Unknown. 1995 Der Kopf Des Mohren aka The Moors Head. 1994 71 Fragmente Einer Chronologie Des Zufalls aka 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance. 1989 Der 7. Kontinent aka The 7th Continent.

Editors Choice: Time Of The Wolf, Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher, Funny Games, View DVDology

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