My review *contains spoilers*

Is it a cliche in modern cinema to make films about overbearing and controlling mothers? ‘Psycho’ made it high art in 1960. Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock started the trend. ’Black swan’ and ‘the Fighter’ recently had over zealous mothers. But the latter portrayed them in the context of performers with talent who was pushed. Perhaps too far. As oppossed to a pathetic lonely figure who wiles away his hours changing bed sheets unnecessarily.


Michel Haneke’s ‘The Piano Teacher’ predates both the latter. Released in 2001, i saw it for the first time in 2009 and although i appreciated the acting and certain elements of the direction, the films themes of sexual politics and fantastical depravity were lost on me. However, 2 years further experience has shed new light and i considered the film from a very fresh perspective. Something resonated within me in that i could empathise and sympathise with the two main protagonists, Isabelle Huppert’s Erika Dohut and and Benoit Maginel’s Walter Klemmer, while at the same time understanding and deploring therir extremely negative idiosyncracies and at times appalling actions. I initially dismissed Haneke as being an emotionally cold filmmaker. Yet it is this very distance which engages us with his characters. We are not forced to take sides. This may be largely due to his strong casting. Then again, arguably 90% of filmmaking is strong casting.

Haneke’s use of distant camera shots are indicative of the cold distant relationship Erika has with her surroundings. Haneke also makes good use of the objectivity of his camera work. He doesn’t resort to flashy techniques such as close ups, freeze frames or tracking/steadi-cam shots to try to accentuate a characters behaviour and thus increase our sympathy for them. Of course i am not implying that such methods makes one a bad or manipulative filmmaker. It just means that not everyone can be the new Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone or Alfred Hitchcock. Hence the result is that you get filmmakers like Darren Aronofsky who receive critical acclaim not from their story telling ability, and Cinema is without question a story telling industry, but from their artistry. That is a completely different medium. Thus the viewer watches a story unfold naturally without overt manipulation from a relatively objective perspective. The scene where Walter makes his first sexual advance on Erika is viewed from a coldly distant camera. Neither character is aggressively portrayed as the the instigator or rule settor. The audience can make there own mind.
As for Erika, we see her fighting with her mother in the opening scene. Is this a new recent spout of rebellion or has this conflict always existed? Most of the antipathy Erika has for her mother seems to stem from the fact that she is made to feel like a dirty whore for trying to appear overtly feminine in any way. She returns home with a new garment which is subsequently torn in a scuffle. Any suggestion that Erika may have been accosted by any member of the opposite sex at any point on her way home from work, her only respite from her mother, is treated with shame and derision by a parent (credited aptly as ‘mother’, perhaps a ‘Norma’ Bates injoke ) who is portrayed only as the nameless instigator of bullying tactics and who perceives herself as the victim once Erika tries to defend herself, verbally or physically. Inevitably, an incestuous character development emerges. She has a love/hate relationship with her mother. Yet Haneke never treats this issue glibly or pithily like, for example, Brian De Palma with his ludicrous remake of Howard Hawks ‘Scarface’. It is only teased.

Erika says she doesn’t care or feel. Huppert plays this well. She has such a cold steely look in her eyes for the majority of the first two thirds of the film its a wonder the camera man didn’t have to wear an eskimo jacket for the filming duration. The scene where Walter auditions to join her class is particularly good. Huppert stares intensely at Walter while her eyes flicker around intensely. God only knows what Erika is thinking. Huppert probably just thought about the ridiculously depraved, yet brilliant, scene she appeared in in Jean Luc Godard’s ‘slow motion’ 21 years earlier to get that effect. She is almost ambivelent in her love and disgust of Walter. Ostensibly she excites and repulses him. Her body language is also very measured. At various points her rigidness, especially in her upper body around the shoulders, is so apparent i almost felt the urge to stand upright whilst watching her. Yet when she becomes less inhibited she loosens and her gesticulations begin to increase.

Walter is a lot more lighthearted. Portrayed as being someone who has talent but lacks real heart or passion for the art. His true vocation is ice hockey. He brutally shunts aside two young female ice skaters at one point. He gets his kicks from brutality, not finesse. His sole motivation for teaching from Erika appears to be lust confused with love. A recurrent theme in the film. I’ll save you the lecure. She treats him so coldly but he keeps coming back for more like an emotional prostitute. Like the big bad wolf who kept blowing at the door until it came down. When he makes his advance, he is greeted with a bizarre set of rules to the sexual encounter.’Look straight at me’, ‘don’t look at your penis’ and a door to public toilet is left open at her behest. Every agenda is set by Erika. initially he plays along. When he is masterbated but not ‘finished’ off so to speak he describes calls Erika ‘cruel’ and a ‘bitch’ and talks of a ‘level playing field’ but his fascination with the scenario keeps his interest aroused. But once the big bad wolf has blown down the house and he sees the full extent of her fantasies and bizarre approach to love and lust in the form of a long rambling letter he recoils and dismisses her as a ‘pervert’ and says she should seek help. In the penultimate scene his love and lust turns to aggression whereby he confronts Erika and actively acts out her fantasies. The mother is locked in a cupboard (an action which if taken earlier in Erika’s life may have negated the need for the entire flm) and Walter physically attacks Erika before having intercourse with her. Is it rape? Was it fair for Erika to push his buttons or to ‘jerk his chain’? (to quote Robert De Niro in little seen 1989 film ‘Jacknife’) Clealy Walter still has the memory of being left unfinished. Further confusion confounds his thinking when in a previous scene she ‘pukes it back’ after she decides to go all the way rather than just tease him. His frustrations, sexual or not, turn to violence. Behaviour that sometimes appears to be a males only way of expressing ones self. I am not in any way condoning Walter’s actions. He was clearly wrong in what he decided to do and if reported he could potentially have been in very serious trouble for very serious crimes. But was he pushed? Provoked? Did this justify his behaviour at the end? Again, Haneke lets the audience decide. He never tells you what to think. He just knocks at the door.
Erika’s sexua corruptions are portrayed with subtlety. For a film with a high level of it the only scene that is graphic does not involve either Erika or Walter engaged in any intimate clinch, but shows graphic scenes of pornography in a porn shop where Erika watches privately while inhaling the fumes of ‘soiled’ tissues. The scenes of intimacy between them appear largely out of shot. Only the trysting of bodies are visable. It is a film that does not resort to exploitation. It would have been easy for Haneke to show scenes of a graphic nature to up the commercial ante but this film is not pornographic. For that i would suggest Tinto Brass or Michael Bay. It is a study of sexual politics, game playing and ultimate domination and submission.

Once Erika realises her domineering debauchery has not been accepted gratefully she resorts to attempted submission. She implores Walter to physically harm her. Something of which she does to herself earlier in the proceedings by self mutilating her genitalia. Is this self puishment for being the dirty whore her mother makes her feel that she is? Erika’s violence is not restricted to herself. At one point she rather vindictively places broken glass into one of her pupils coat pocket with the deliberate intention of harming her. Is this an act or attrition or mercy? Said pupil is portrayed as a young girl pushed by her mother into being a top Pianist. It is obvious the stress this puts on the young girl. At various points in the film she is crying or palpatating at the pressure of auditioning for a school piano recital. Is Erika jealous of the idea that she may progress further in the piano performing milieu than she has? Or is is she merely identifying a set of circumstances, recognised a similar pattern to how her own early years transpred and intervened, in a seemingly nasty way if taken at face value, to save her from the same fate? I ultimtely don’t know. It would be interesting viewing for a psychiatrist but at least it is refreshing to see an intelligent filmmaker pondering difficult questions.

As for the ending, Erika has to replace the pupil in the recital. Her mother dismisses her performance as ‘just a school play’. Walter arrives and wishes her good luck from a distance.No acknowledgment of what had happened whatsoever. She is left alone in the lobby. She produces a knife and proceeds to stab herself in her left side around the heart area. She walks away calmly and coldly and leaves the building with the same dispassionate look she had for the films opening two thirds. Why does she not die? Is the films ending to be taken literally? Again, it is for the audience to decide. But in my humble opinion the ending plays into the notion of a woman with no heart. She bleeds but does not die. What has happen to her has harmed her but has not killed her. And as Friedrich Nietzche says, “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger”. But surely at some point this behaviour will occur again. I only hope that her next beau realises what he is in for or can and is willing to help her. The ‘Piano teacher’ is a film revolving around unanswered questions. But i am glad that Michel Haneke asked them.

5/5



i've seen people being unnecessarily nasty on imdb before so don't be. go and play with facebook or twitter for that crap. a review is about someone expressing an opinion and arguing it well.i don't call Peter Bradshaw of the guardian a *beep* twat' because i don't agree that 'source code' should have got 5 stars for example.


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