Isabelle Ruppert’s Performance is Thought Provoking

I wrote this review of La Pianiste four years ago.

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A few days ago I saw a French Film, which my friend Levie gave me as a token from her recent visit in Hong Kong. La Pianiste or The Piano Teacher is one, if not the most bizarre foreign film that I have ever seen. It tells about a very prim, proper, and demanding teacher who holds a very deep, dark secret– she is obsessed with pornography and bondage. She lives with her domineering mother and manages to live a respectable lifestyle. Then a young, good looking student comes along and expresses a major interest in her. She resists at first, but eventually gives in and exposes him to her dark fantasies. However this only leads to tragic and ponderous results.

If you expect to see titillating sex scenes, then you’ll get disppointed by this film. Most of the sex scenes, particularly those in the bathroom and apartment, are dark and grimy, and mostly bring out the angst and cynicism of characters at the start of the movie. The film explores a good understanding of the torment and frustrations of one whose sexual fantasies are very strong and perverse and yet can never really be lived out.

There are interesting discussions in the movie about Schubert, Beethoveen and Bach. Watching the movie made me realize that playing any one of those mentioned should be done with great effort.

The one truly lasting image one gets from this film is not the sex nor the piano. It is the face of the main character. Michael Haneke (director) shows a good sensitivity for this. It is a unique face in that it at times seems very plain and middle aged and then at other times seems to have strong hints of youthful beauty. You literally SEE the tightness and coldness of the character and then at other times a softness. In one memorably quick moment you even see the look of playfulness and devil may care. Her face is shown a lot sometimes in extreme close up. Yet the more they show it the more fascinating it seems to become.