What about the knife at the end ?
I didn'tget that... Why does she stab herself and leaves just like that ?
That's a crazy film ; maybe it's just another crazy feature to this crazy film...
That was her way out (of her life). Being so restrained made of her some kind of monster, but her life was equilibrated enough (super strict classical music training blocking her sexual desire, but it being blocked may have made it grown worse), until Walter broke that balance. Things couldn't work anymore.
Also she's just completely crazy.
Just sharing my opinion.
What you're saying is meaningful... Thank you for helping with your opinion on the question. I love crazy films... It always takes you aback.
shareI wonder, too: Do you think that Klemmer possibly assumes Erika's role at the film's end? Of being abusive/sadistic, if not toward himself, then toward others? If Erika leaves, then doesn't someone have to fill in to play the piece so the singer can perform? Was Klemmer playing that song during one of his lessons? If so, then it's perfectly plausible to think this is to be inferred.
shareI thought something similar while watching this--I don't think it could be assumed or expected that he would get up to play the piece in her absence, but I think it is implied that he could very get up in front of the crowd and play it. It was a big deal for her to get to that point, but it was easy for him.
Also--and I never read the book, so I don't know if this is answered there--but I got the sense that she brought the knife in order to stab him, but when he saw him arrive with his gaggle of friends, seeing him smiling and jovial as though everything that had happened the night before was meaningless, that put her over the edge.
I agree with your last paragraph Alex. And I haven't read the book either.
I don't think she intended to stab him. I think the kninfe-in-purse was analogous to the razor-in-purse, only bigger -- because now, after the violent encounter with Walter, her pain is even greater than it was. She always needs to have at her disposal some method of self-harm -- that's one way of feeling in control.
"Till September, Petronella" -- a great short story by one of the greatest and too-little-known writers of the 20th c., Jean Rhys -- begins with the narrator (a very lost young woman) saying that once she realized she could kill herself any time she chose, she felt better.
From Isabelle Huppert, on control (tho not specifically about the knife):
In the case of La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher), Michael Haneke talks about control and loss of control, and he was filming a woman who I felt was more identified with the situation of the director. This is a woman who controls her desire, exactly as a director controls his own desire and the audience's desire. In the film, the woman is not the object of desire, she is the one who wants to control her desire. That is why as a film - I'm not even talking about the story - as a film it is interesting because he has changed the status of an actress in a film. That is why the sexual scenes were easier for me to do because I am not set up in the usual situation of being an object of a man's desire, I am the one who controls the desire of the man. So I felt completely protected by this change of focus.
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