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
[…] The Piano Teacher – Haneke […]