The Piano Teacher (Unrated Edition)
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Movie Reviews of The Piano Teacher (Unrated Edition)
Movie Review: Huppert All the Way
Summary: 5 Stars
Erika (Isabelle Huppert) is a fortyish piano teacher with deeply repressed sexual feelings. She lives with her mother (Annie Girardot), a controlling, oppressive woman, and deals with her erotic longings through voyeurism, visits to sex shops and self mutiliation. She still sleeps with her mother. The film largely takes place at the conservatory where she teaches and at the apartment she shares with her mother. Huppert in an excellent on-disc interview says Erika longs to be loved but is frightened of seduction. She treats her students coldly but is drawn to one who is vain and handsome, and played by Benoit Magimel. The rest is the story of her creating and accepting a masochistic relationship with the young man that spirals down into her own psycho-sexual collapse.
This movie won't be everyone's choice for an evening with the kids. It's a serious, disturbing film for adults that looks grimly at repressed feelings and emotional self destruction. For the grownups, it might put you off sado-masochism for a few days. It's a first-rate film.
Isabelle Huppert is one of my favorite actors. Like Depardieu, she has no apparent screen vanity; she'll do what it takes for the role. She also has the rare ability to express deep, unsettling feelings with an absolute economy of expression. She is incredible in this film.
I'm happy to have the disc, but to tell you the truth I'm not sure how many more times I'll watch it.
The DVD transfer is excellent, the audio is first rate, and the English subtitles are easy to follow.
Movie Review: if you ever thought of studying music...!
Summary: 5 Stars
I spent 4 years at a music conservatory. In my experience it was a hostile, competitive environment that stiffles creativity and love of music. My teacher for my principal instrument was as cold, abrupt, unfeeling, and abusive as the character brilliantly potrayed by Isabelle Huppert. Watching this film made me feel like I was right back there and left me feeling nauseated that I had spent so much of my life in such an environment.I got my degree and quit music - this film helped me remember why.
Five stars for realism.
Movie Review: Poetic, powerful, and disturbing
Summary: 5 Stars
The Piano Teacher is a beautifully acted, wonderfully cinematic, and deeply disturbing masterpiece. It is quite unlike any other motion picture experience I have ever had.Isabelle Hubert is a brilliant actress and she absolutely shines in her role as a psychotic piano teacher who can't get what she wants, so goes out to ruin the life of others. The movie reveals this slowly and beautifully. I was impressed that there was no attempt at pop psychology or mediocre explanations that you would expect in a Hollywood melodrama with similar subject matter. The film is done in a simple, elegant, and gut-wrentching style, sure to fascinate and disturb, even if the film is hated in the end. Also worth mentioning is that Hubert's troubled but sympathetic character lives with her mother, in what has to be one of the most chilling mother/child relationships since PSYCHO.
This is an exceptional film, thought-provoking, powerful, and strangely moving. It is not for those who can't face the dark side of human nature. It's far from being a life affirming "feel good" movie; it's a movie that is difficult to watch and raises plenty of questions. If the difficult subject matter of 'Irreversible' interested you, then this is your kind of movie. I enjoyed it immensely, as uncomfortable as I was watching it, and consider it a worthwhile, rewarding experience.
The film has a haunting and disturbing finale, and is not always easy to digest, and therefore, it is not for all tastes. For fans of French or art-house cinema, this is definitely your cup of tea.
Note: Stay away from the R-rated version, which goes so far as to blur out the video images in a porn shop.
Grade A.
Movie Review: A Comercial Success to say the Very Least
Summary: 5 Stars
I entirely agree with the previous reviewers. The actors and actresses are of the best choice. The characters are so well portrayed and the settings are so well depicted. The overall effects are quite convincing. It's defintely shocking and at least commercially this film is a success.The choice of Schubert's music at least serves two points. First, Schubert's music is one of the saddest in the history of music, it's the music of the loniest pilgrim. Second, contrary to Beethoven's music, which is so clear and straight forward, the change of moods in Schubert's music is so sudden and so abundant and that it is often difficult to follow, so are the turns and twists in this story.
A general survey of the life of the pianists would making this story more convincing. An American critized Kissin for knowing nothing but playing on the piano from day to night all his life; Glenn gould shut himself up in front of the piano since or before his pre-teens; Allica de Larrocha's mother begged her daughter to "live her life" (Allica's word), instead of sacrifying it to the piano; MargaretArgerich's "fiance" (Margaret's own word) was the piano... The life of a musician destined to become a concert pianist could be very lonely ( and boring )to the point of abnormality unless you really love it, or unless you can balance it with sufficient chamber music or the like. Yet, competition is so keen that 99 concert pianists out of a hundred would advise against a cereer of a concert pianist unless he is exceptionally talented.
Obviously the heroine here, despite her sacrifice, didn't make it as a concert pianist. Her mother, so possessive and dominating, openly urged her to earn more money in order to buy a flat. Furthermore, the family has a history of mental problem; and her mother sharing the bed with her even when she was forty something... Needless to say, this case is by no means a norm yet it is not at all unconvincing.
What is controversial though is the deliberate distortion of the sound of all music, be it's piano or vocal music, so that there is NO MUSIC LEFT AT ALL. Perhaps this serves the main theme of the story better, delivering a greater impact upon the audience. And yet on the other hand, one also wonders if that is really necessary, whether a mix of bitteress & sweetness would be more impressing.
Movie Review: A Commercial Success to Say the Very Least
Summary: 4 Stars
I entirely agree with the previous reviewers. The actors and actresses are of the best choice. The characters are so well portrayed and the settings are so well depicted. The overall effects are quite convincing. It's defintely shocking and at least commercially this film is a success.
The choice of Schubert's music at least serves two points. First, Schubert's music is one of the saddest in the history of music, it's the music of the loniest pilgrim. Second, contrary to Beethoven's music, which is so clear and straight forward, the changes of moods in Schubert's music are so sudden and so abundant and that it is often difficult to follow, and so are the turns and twists in this story.
A general survey of the life of the pianists would making this story more convincing. An American critized Kissin for knowing nothing but playing on the piano from day to night all his life; Glenn Gould shut himself up in front of the piano since and before his pre-teens; Allica de Larrocha's mother begged her daughter to "live her life" (Allica's word), instead of sacrifying it to the piano; MargaretvArgerich's "fiance" (Margaret's own word) was the piano. The life of a musician destined to become a concert pianist could be very lonely ( and boring )to the point of abnormality unless you really enjoy it, or unless you can balance it with sufficient chamber music or the like. Yet, competition is so keen that 99 concert pianists out of a hundred would advise against a cereer of a concert pianist unless one is exceptionally talented.
Obviously the heroine here as "a piano teacher", despite her sacrifice, didn't quite make it as a concert pianist. Her mother, so possessive and dominating, furiously urged her to earn more money to buy a flat etc. Furthermore, the family has a history of mental problem; and her mother sharing the bed with her even when she was forty something. Needless to say, this case is by no means a norm yet it is not at all unconvincing. And having been to the concert hall where this film was shot, it appears to me strikingly sad and true.
What is controversial though is the deliberate distortion of the sound of all music, be it's piano or vocal music, so that there is NO MUSIC LEFT AT ALL, ONLY NOISES. Perhaps this serves the main theme of the story better, delivering a greater impact upon the audience. And yet on the other hand, one also wonders if that is really necessary, whether a mix of bitteress & sweetness would be more impressing.