La Pianiste (2001)
Directed by Michael Haneke

Film Review

One of the most controversial and critically acclaimed French language films of 2001, La Pianiste is not a comfortable film to watch but it is profoundly moving and compelling in its depiction of sexual repression and mid-life solitude.  It is the work of one of Austria's most distinguished film directors, Michael Haneke, who is perhaps best known for his 1997 film Funny Games.

What makes La Pianiste a noteworthy film above all else is the remarkable performance from its lead actress, Isabelle Huppert.  Once again, Huppert is playing a disconnected, sexually repressed middle-aged woman who lives for the most part in a dream world of her own creation.  Her role in this film has strong resonances with other parts she has played recently, most notably Mika in Chabrol's Merci pour le chocolat.

In La Pianiste, Huppert is required to go perhaps further than she has ever been permitted or even dared to go in depicting a truly perverted and solitary woman.  Her character is as poignant as it is disturbing - this is a woman who has a relationship with only one person, her mother.  Her father is locked away in a lunatic asylum and she is unable to form a relationship with anyone else - it is as if she is still trapped in her mother's womb, unable to break free and form a tangible bond with the outside world.

Huppert's portrayal of Erika shows us a tortured soul incapable of loving another human being, and so her sexuality inevitably ends up following a distinctly perverse course.  Indeed what is perhaps most shocking is seeing an apparently respectable middle aged woman behaving in a manner which is traditionally the reserve of men, living off a diet of cheap pornography and violent self-abuse.

This is certainly one of Huppert's best performances, if not her best, and it is hardly surprising she won the best actress award at Cannes in 2001.  What is perhaps more surprising is that Benoît Magimel was awarded the best actor award at the same festival - his presence in the film is felt far less than that of Huppert, and his character is less well developed, but his performance is nonetheless creditable.  Annie Girardot, a long-standing favourite of French cinema since the 1950s, has also received very favourable criticism for her role as Erika's mother.  The mother-daughter relationship portrayed by Girardot and Huppert is frighteningly lifelike and provides a credible foundation for Erika's character.

Although it has received many favourable reviews and is undoubtedly a major work (it won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 2001), La Pianiste is not a film that will appeal to all tastes.  Although it is relatively tame in what it shows on the screen (the sex scenes are explicit but mild), it is a film which has no qualms about upsetting its audience.  The scene where Erika mutilates her genitalia with a razor is the most graphically shocking part of the film (and is reported to have made some male spectators faint).

There are some moments of comic relief, but these strangely have the effect of amplifying the film's grim poignancy instead of relieving the tension.  The feeling of despairing tragedy which comes from the film's abrupt ending is very real indeed.  Watching La Pianiste may not be a pleasant experience, but it is a film which leaves a lasting impression.

Film Synopsis

Erika Kohut is a brilliant pianist who gives master class piano lessons in Vienna.  Although in her forties, she still lives with her dominating mother and apparently has no interest in men.  But she leads a secret double life: by day, she is an austere, conscientious tutor; by night she watches pornographic films and stalks courting couples.  When a young man, Benoît, starts to take an interest in her, she attempts to brush him aside, but he persists and she ends up having to give him piano lessons.  Inwardly, she is as attracted towards Benoît as he is towards her.   But whilst the young man genuinely appears to love her, Erika merely regards Benoît as an object to fulfil her perverse sado-masochistic fantasies...