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Michael Haneke is one of the best directors of modern day cinema. He understands how to make films that affect the audience on a deep, humane level like no other auteur. The relationship between the cinema and the audience is important to him and he tends to exploit it to make his films poignant. He seamlessly incorporates subtlety, but it’s his daring approach to filmmaking that makes his films so relatable and memorable. The Piano Teacher is the prime example of how Haneke works.

His film Funny Games (1997) also strongly exhibits realism, bridges the gap between movie and moviegoer and eschews from conventional narrative. It was his breakthrough and it’s also downright brilliant work that conveys a message that has yet to be topped by any other artist, in my opinion. However, Funny Games lacks the subtlety that The Piano Teacher has and that’s the key element in its poignancy. Subtlety wasn’t exactly the approach Haneke was going for when making Funny Games, but the fact that it plays to the advantage of The Piano Teacher’s message is what makes the film Haneke’s best and most realized work.

Adapted from the acclaimed novel by Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher tells the story of forty-something Erika Kohut, a suppressed piano teacher. She lives with her overbearing mother and their relationship, or lack thereof, is the catalyst for all of Erika’s problems. Her mother forced her into piano, has sheltered her from the world and disallows her from having a social life. Erika has grown up in a secluded environment and is devoid of any emotion. She has never learned how to express herself emotionally and more importantly, sexually. Erika yearns for emotional freedom, but is so lost in the world that she wouldn’t even know what freedom would feel like if it even happened to her. This leads Erika to begin hating herself which in turn leads her to hurting herself. She practices genital mutilation just so she is allowed to feel something. Now associating sadomasochism with what emotion should be, Erika’s relationship with her young student, Walter, develops grossly into sexual mayhem. The key scene where Erika finally explains to Walter, via handwritten letter, what she would like him to do to her is both highly disturbing and intriguingly human. Although Erika’s sadomasochistic ways are twisted, there is still that glimmering hope of humanity that issues forth from Erika’s facial expressions at all times.

The final scene is one of the most tragic scenes I have ever witnessed. Erika, after being savagely beaten, raped and tortured by Walter, has to play a recital. She is ready and greets everyone in the lobby before the show. The guests take their seats, but Erika remains in the lobby knowing the audience is waiting for her. She takes a kitchen knife from her purse and stabs herself in the left shoulder (obviously aiming for her heart). For a brief second, we see the pain in her face and this is a moment of relief for her and us. She does indeed feel something, but it took a death blow to her heart for that moment of realization. She staggers out of the recital hall, onto the street and ultimately out of frame. The film ends here and we are left with a great sense of pity, but also with a morbid happiness. At least I was.

Isabelle Huppert has given us one of the greatest film performances. Her portrayal of Erika is tragic and incredibly nuanced. She won the Best Actress prize at Cannes where the film first premiered in 2001. The performances from Magimel (Walter) and Girardot (her mother) are also incredible and the three of them take acting to a new plateau.

Michael Haneke has given us a masterpiece that has gone unappreciated by most. His intentions are, as they were with Funny Games, to challenge the audience. He’s feeding the machine that is voyeurism; it’s been instilled in us, the audience, that violence and sex is something we want to see in movies. Haneke takes our request to a new level and shocks us with subject matter that almost wards us away from the film. Clearly he is not a fan of the mindless violence that is popular in Hollywood films so he challenges the audience with violence that will make us question why we like watching this after all. It’s his way of empowering the viewer.

We may feel empowered after watching his films, but it certainly was an uncomfortable ride.

The Piano Teacher is probably my favorite Haneke film, but really doesn’t say much since this is the third film by him that I have seen. Regardless, Haneke is certainly an interesting figure in contemporary cinema and I can’t wait to check out more of his work. With The Piano Teacher, Haneke explores the themes of capitulation and masochism, all revolving somewhat around the beautiful instrument that is the piano.

Isabelle Huppert is a prestigious piano teacher at an even more prestigious musical school, where she sits all day pointing out her students mistakes and errors, scolding them for misinterpreting the music, while doing little to teach them. Her life takes a 180 whenever she goes home to her obsessive mother, and frequent battles for control and dominance take place, which usually end in a cascade of tears and apologies. Through her schooling and mother, Isabelle has become sexually repressed to the point of visiting porno stores to smell used tissues men have masturbated into, and eventually leads her to voyeurism as she peers in on people having sex in a car. This all changes when she meets Benoit Magimel, an engineer who has a passion for the piano, and the piano teacher.

Benoit believes that he is in love and tries to convince her. Once he does they each have their own ideology on what love is, and how to go about with a healthy, sexual relationship. Benoit likes the more traditional aspects of love while Isabelle likes to take the role of the victim, which echoes the idea that Benoit is using her like an instrument. The one question that I still have yet to figure out is if I like Isabelle’s character. Should I feel sentimentality for her, for being such a repressed character? Or should I be disgusted, by her emotionally abusive teaching, her perverted and shameless masturbation, and how she intentionally destroyed a student’s hand with shattered glass? I still mull this over in my head.

Whether or not I like her specifically, The Piano Teacher does make for an amazing character study of this perturbed woman. Haneke explores the darker psychological side that many people face, and chips away to the core of it, leaving enough left over for you to think over in your head. All in all, a fantastic film.