The Piano Teacher

 1/4

Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Benoit Magimel, Annie Girardot

Rated R for Aberrant Sexuality including Violence, and for Language

For most people, when they hear "art film," their radar goes up.  They think of emotionally sterile movies with incomprehensible dialogue, lots of long takes of actors staring off into space, and so on.  It's largely untrue.  There are plenty of "art house" movies that can be enjoyed by the multiplex crowd if distributors took a chance ("Brotherhood of the Wolf," my favorite movie of all time, is an excellent example).  There are, of course, movies where the stereotype of the movie applies.  Such as "The Piano Teacher."

Any stereotype of arthouse movies that you can think of applies to "The Piano Teacher."  It is dry.  It is dense.  It is without any sort of action or humor.  It is also so emotionally inert that watching it is an endurance test.  There are some things worthy of praise to be found here (namely the performances), but my God, is this movie dull.  It took me all day to get through it.

Erika Kohut (Huppert) is a celebrated pianist and music professor.  She is as demanding as they come and unmerciful with her students and coworkers alike.  Erika is a repressed individual.  She has no social life.  She still lives with her mother (Girardot), who treats her like she is still sixteen.  The only release she gets is from self-mutilation.  Then into her life comes Walter (Magimel), a handsome young man whose brilliant piano skills are only matched by his lust for her.

"The Piano Teacher" is a psychosexual study of Erika.  That might be fascinating.  Erika is a disturbed woman who needs to dominate everyone around her while at the same time is a masochist.  She also has a very unhealthy relationship with her mother (at one point, Erika tries to rape her).  The problem is that Erika is not fully written.  I didn't understand her mental state through and through.  Perhaps mercifully, I couldn't identify with her.  Not that I would necessarily want to.  Erika is the kind of person who needs an extended stay in a mental health care facility.

The problem is that director Michael Haneke, adapting from the book by Elfriede Jelinek, does everything he can to avoid manipulation.  And I mean everything.  The film looks antiseptic and cold (considering Erika's personality, that may have been appropriate, but it doesn't help the film).  The only music comes from the characters playing their instruments.  And of course, there are lots of static shots of the background or characters staring.  Riveting stuff.  I get the need to avoid a heavy hand, but going too far in the other direction is just as bad.

The sheer boredom that results from Haneke's inert approach isn't for lack of trying on part of the actors.  They're excellent.  Isabelle Huppert in particular is brilliant.  She makes Erika seem real even though her character doesn't come alive in the script.  Considering some of the bizarre things that Erika does, that's an impressive accomplishment.  Her co-star, Benoit Magimel doesn't have as juicy of a role, but he is a charmer who will play her games (up to a point).  That being said, I simply never bought that he would ever be attracted to Erika.  Annie Girardot is fine as the mother, but she doesn't have much to do.

Make no mistake: this is an art film.  Not simply a movie without a mammoth budget and big stars.  Its appeal is limited (I, obviously, am not a member of its target audience), but it was never intended to be so. Even so, I'm not giving it a pass because it was so goddamn boring.  It took me the entire day to get through it.  And the rewards were not worth it.