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The Piano Teacher – 2001 Haneke
- It’s clearly one of Haneke’s best works (and Huppert’s single best I’ve seen) an unflinching portrait of a complicated and icy woman
- Haneke, like many of his works, is incredibly brutal here- he means to flatten us.
- It’s an intellectual work- here’s a Freudian reading of it—Huppert sleeps with her mother and later, in a tough scene, jumps her sexually
- There’s a high level Schumann vs. Schubert discussion that could easily be a funny intellectual joke in a Woody Allen movie
- Reoccurring overhead shot of hands playing the piano
- It would make for a nice dual feature pairing with Elle– Huppert’s character and the issues
- Haneke, wisely, spends a lot of time holding the frame (past the point of comfort for most viewers) on Huppert’s icy stare
- Twin obsessions of music and sex— repression, self-mutilation
- Exacting and rigid

- Huppert’s character is clearly cracking up and getting worse
- here’s no musical score to the film—actually I don’t think any of Haneke’s films have a score
- It’s about power and control for Huppert’s character- there’s a very long domineering scene in the bathroom that is tough—it’s a painful watch
- This singular character study by Haneke is like a PT Anderson later work without the visual flair (I think Haneke would be proud of that but artistically it just puts it a notch below)
- It’s an isolated world—Huppert’s character is in prison (many scenes show he captured)—she sneaks off to a porno rental store—her worlds are colliding here as she’s less and less able to control herself
- She cannot love “you’re sick” he says of her. The scene is devastating. Huppert’s eyes during that scene is extremely powerful acting
- Huppert’s character also tortures a student of hers- but you could read it as she’s trying to prevent the student from having her awful life
- The finale is perfect- we have the self-abuse scene and then the gorgeous exterior concert hall which could substituted as a big beautiful prison—it actually mirrors the school ending in Cache
- A Must-See film- top 5 of the year quality
Drake2021-09-26T13:35:12+00:00
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