Rating: 
Summary: unconvincing
Review: Despite a superb performance from Huppert the movie as a whole simply doesn't hold water. Her repression at the hands of her mother (another great performance) is very well done but I didn't buy the tenor of her relationship with the young "genius". And the ending is a rather strained copout. Nevertheless, very interesting movie with some excellent acting. Unfortunately, the interview with Isabelle throws absolutely no light on her character - she must be a brilliant instinctive actress.
Rating:
Summary: Crash course in Abnormal Psychology (with good acting)
Review: Isabelle Huppert is an amazing actress. Her rendering of persona in this film is quite remarkable. It only goes downhill after that. Though I would cautiously recommend this film to Huppert fans and Francophiles de Cinema.The film deals in a prismatic way (not straightforward) with issues of self-abuse, incest, self-loathing, sexual deviance, rage, seduction and oddly enough, love. Many questions are left unanswered, hence you must be the psychiatrist and discover the mysterious pathology behind all these behaviours (and you should know that they are not at all clear). If you like the type of film where you have to delve deep into the psychological trauma and gestalt of a character, then this film will leave you thinking and discussing and wondering for hours. Perhaps you will arrive at a diagnosis and many of the questions unanswered will find formulation. Perhaps at that point the wonderful sets and beautiful acting will not have been for naught, that beneath the pain and excruciating scenes of deviance and humiliation will reveal something deeper about the human condition and our common existence. If you arrive at such a conclusion would you please write me and enlighten me as to this film's deeper meanings. Also, it should be noted that this film is extremely explicit.
Not for kids under any circumstances.
Rating: 
Summary: Understanding Aberrant Behavior
Review: This is not an artsy film. It's not The Red Violin, Amadeus or The Turning Point. It is more an intelligent Fatal Attraction without the sensational violence. The movie explores behavior hidden behind doors: self-mutilation, masochism, honest sexual desire; all against a backdrop of classical piano instruction in Vienna. While the film is graphic at points, this helped me to understand the aforementioned behaviors. I need to have a better understanding of children who cut themselves, girls that starve themselves, and teens who commit suicide. This film is a cinematic, daring start.
Rating: 
Summary: only the french would call this "art"
Review: No matter how edgy or avant garde you might think you are, you may find this movie disturbingly creepy. I personally wish I had not seen it, as it gave me nightmares. The central character is a repressed musician who never made the big time. Her pushy stage mother resents that both their lives were utterly wasted in the pursuit of stardom that did not happen, and she takes all her rage and disappointment out on the hapless daughter who is now an aging old maid herself. They made a lot of sacrifices, and now they live together, miserable, lonely, sex-starved, and barely making it on the daughter's paycheck as a piano teacher. All the sexual repression is really quite nauseating, and the daughter expresses her angst by physically cutting herself, watching porno movies with perverted men and doing filthy things in sex shops. Ultimately, she gets involved in a truly gnarly relationship with a young, handsome student who has no clue how to handle the truly deep-seated and deranged perversions of this older woman. The end totally grossed me out, and I am really suprised an actress of the stature of Isabelle Hupert could rationalize this work as "art".
Rating:
Summary: Viewer Beware
Review: I have never written a review before, but I fear I could be held criminally liable if I did not warn anyone about to waste his money or her time on this movie, just as I would be if I knew that there was a bridge out up ahead and failed to warn oncoming traffic. There are so many things wrong with this movie that it makes one wonder whether or not it was made deliberately to goof on viewers and critics.
The plot, if it may be called that, is so creaky that a gallon of Three-in-One couldn't help it. Based on a psychological insight so ham-fisted that even a student in Psyc 101 would giggle, it takes about thirty seconds to determine the basic course of the movie. The main character spends her days brutalizing her students verbally and emotionally while secretly longing--are you ready for the surprise twist--to be physically brutalized in her turn by a lover, within earshot of her harpy of a mother no less. Enter the handsome young man, athlete, engineer, pianist, who is by turns repelled and attracted by the sado-masochistic fantasy, although why is anybody's guess, as one certainly doesn't get much of a clue from his dialogue or his actions. He also utters what has to be one of the funniest lines in the history of cinema during the rape scene, although rape may or may not be the correct word in this context. (And, admittedly, I do not speak French, so had to rely on the subtitles, but I don't think the translators would have gotten that particular line wrong and not any of the others.)
There is one group who will, no doubt, enjoy this film, Francophobes. They will find all of their worst stereotypes of and prejudices about the French resoundly re-affirmed: the snobbery, the pretentiousness, the sexual deviance, etc. About the only one missing is that we never see any of the main characters driving a car.
Someone, I can't remember who, once reviewed a book by saying that it was a book not to be put down lightly, but to be thrown with great force. I think that aptly sums up this film as well.
Rating:
Summary: the exalted plane of art and the sad refrain of one life
Review: Isabelle Huppert is in one great movie after another. A couple of years ago she played the mysterious and apparently selfless wife of a famus composer in Claude Chabrol's Merci Pour Le Chocolat. This time she plays a piano teacher in yet another role filled with subtlety and mystery. The role is in many ways reminiscent of the earlier one as Huppert reveals clues to her characters troubled psyche with odd and disturbing actions which offer a sharp contrast to her calm and collected exterior. She does much of her acting with the same expression which makes her one of the most interesting performers to watch for what she conceals with each performance is what fascinates and keeps us attentive. The performance Huppert gives as the piano teacher is a disturbing one for beneath her reserved exterior and her very high reputation seethe the passions of an unhappy woman. Whether her mother has caused her daughter to grow into the person she has become or not is perhaps a matter for debate. It appears the mother is over protective but then as the story progresses one sees the mother has good reason to be over protective. Huppert's piano teacher loves her mother it seems but also wants to torture her mother. For her students the piano teacher wastes no time with feelings it seems but again the performance is subtle and layered and offers clues that perhaps she does care for them in her way. It is possible to interpret some of her actions in more than one way. Ultimately we find it is only she herself she wants to humiliate/torture as we see her act out in various circumstances-- most notably in her actions toward a young student who has an infatuation with her-- her own self-degradation. Frame to frame the story is exquisitely shot and told. The music is used to incredible effect. In one particularly fabulous scene the director allows the high plane of music of a previous scene to follow Huppert into the next scene where she enters another plane,one that is not high.
Rating:
Summary: The Struggle between Love and Seduction
Review: THE PIANO TEACHER goes places most film makers dare not tread - the dark aspects of frustrated sexuality where desire and affection cannot meet. In brief, this is the story of the inner world of an exceptional pianist and piano teacher who lives with her mother in a 'marriage arrangement' that appears to satisfy both with its accompanying fights, jealousies, cheatings, and clingings. This cold pianist (incomparably portrayed by the fine Isabelle Huppert) is absorbed by Schubert and Schumann and shares many of those composers' tendencies towards madness and melancholy. Her private acting out of her sexual life includes forays into pornography video booths, drive-in movies for voyeurism, and other sadomasochistic practices that leave her frustrated in her drive to be humiliated and beaten. Into this sad woman's life enters a sensuously handsome student (again, played with complete credibility and finesse by Benoit Magimel) and much of the film is a hard driving match between lust/desire and need/repulsion, the true approach/avoidance conflict. The pace of the film is so correct for a story about the extended periods of ennui between moments of exhilharation that mirror the life inside a music academy. We are treated to some wonderful Schubert, Schumann, Schonberg, and Bach that serves as the 'dialogue' during extended scenes where the piano teacher listens with her eyes and ears and dsitorted mind, reacting to the music in equal parts with the performing students. Yes, this is a distrubing film, but it is not a grotesque film. Director Michael Haneke manages to place this surreal sexual tragedy for us to understand just how wide the bell curve of human sexuality stretches. An astonishingly fine film - if you are open to explore the dark interstices of the human mind without prejudice. An added feature of an interview on the DVD with Isabelle Huppert about the character she portrays is exceptionally apropos and well filmed.
Rating:
Summary: Adam Ant was right!
Review: Do you remember the glam rocker, Adam Ant, from the 80s? Well if you do, you will remember one of his hits "Goody Two Shoes." The whole idea behind the song is that a prim and proper woman (who doesn't smoke and doesn't drink) REALLY lets her hair down behind closed doors. Anyway, it was a great song, and the main character of "The Piano Teacher" made me think that this was exactly what Adam Ant had in mind when he wrote his song. Isabelle Huppert plays Professor Erika Kohut--a woman so tightly wound up that you're afraid she's going to snap at any moment. She dresses very modestly, wears no make-up, and her hair is pulled back into a tight no-nonsense bun. She lives with her obnoxious, controlling mother in a claustrophobic apartment. Erika has no privacy, and she accepts that. As a piano teacher, she is meticulous, exacting, and merciless. She has no qualms or hesitation when it comes to telling some poor blubbering student that they are completely talentless. She is so intense, she is nothing less than frightening. Watching Erika, you just know that underneath the surface, passions run deep. Everything Erika does, she does with precision and efficiency--this includes performing self-mutilation and cruising porno shops. She equates pleasure with pain, so we know she is in for a bumpy ride when she meets handsome, vain would-be-stud Walter Klemmer. The attraction is immediate, but Walter and Erika both get more than they bargain for. I thought this was a wonderful film. There were some scenes that were hard to watch--so I didn't--but the story of how a twisted woman tries to reach out to a man who totally misunderstands her was gripping. To me, the most interesting part of the film was how Walter reacted to Erika and what happened when the depths of Erika's depravity sunk in. This was a wonderful role for Huppert; she is truly an incredible actress. I would also recommend "Madame Bovary" if you enjoy Huppert in this film.
Rating:
Summary: A Little Off-Key
Review: Yikes. Where do I begin? Usually, I love watching foreign films, because they tend to rely more on telling a good story rather than special effects and big names. But I'm sorry to have to say that I was very disappointed with this one. "The Piano Teacher" revolves around a sexually repressed piano teacher who never smiles, and who is very icy with everyone, including a young man who, for some odd reason, claims to love her. She still lives with her nosy, sometimes intolerable mother in a small apartment, and sometimes you get the impression they hate each other. This woman also likes to go to porn shops to watch porn videos, and she likes to watch young couples getting hot-and-heavy at drive-in movies. A lot of this film's content is racy... Even though some scenes are, well, deserving of being un-rated, they are not done pornographically. After all, this is an artsy French film. It wasn't so much the racy content that bothered me, but more of how it was executed. By the end of the film, I was frustrated. The piano teacher treats this young man horribly, and freaks him out when she gives him a list of violent things she wants him to do to her doing sex. He, of course, isn't amused by this, but I spent the entire film wondering why he even loved her in the first place. I kind of wanted to give this film one star, because I found a lot of it to be very disturbing. However, I can't because the movie is not a bad movie. The acting is superb, and the story, though not my cup of tea, is still a powerful, tragic story of a woman with some real problems. And of course, the music is great. So while it is not for everyone, it is an okay foreign film, so long as you're not looking for a feel-good one.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing Tale Of Sexual Awakening
Review: Fantastic acting, great story line, a disturbing and thought provoking film about the sexual awaking of a woman, verbally abused by her mother. A prim and proper piano teacher, Isabelle Huppert spends her off time in porn shops and peep shows. A brash young student captures her attention, and awakens her deepest and darkest sexual desires. The unrated version is a must see for any Foreign film fan.
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