Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert) has a volatile home life with her combative mother leading to violence at times. Erika has disturbing sexual tendencies such as porn shop visits, self-mutilations, and voyeurism. She's a piano professor at a conservatory. She's hard on her students especially the fragile Anna Schober. Walter Klemmer is a new student at the conservatory despite her objection. He's taken with her and she eventually lets him into her sexually disturbed world.Isabelle Huppert has such great screen presence. She's great at playing damaged, vulnerable, and cold. It's not the most fun watch. There are a couple of really weird scenes. Her relationship with her mother is outrageous. This is an interesting character study of a troubled woman.

I suppose there are some who will watch this film and, being naïve, will be shocked by the sado-masochistic nature of the relationships it depicts into reaching for fanciful explanations of the story. If so, this would do no more than betray their lack of familiarity with those unusual, but not particularly rare, traits.To be clear; this is not the greatly symbolic film some ill-conceived reviews would have you believe. Instead, it's a fairly straightforward effort about a person with masochistic tendencies. Other than the fact that this person lives with her domineering, wheedling mother, we are told nothing of the life that led her to develop these tendencies, so we are left simply to observe the consequences of her having them. Those consequences range from somewhat interesting, particularly in the first part of the film, to mildly disturbing.The saving grace of the film is Isabelle Huppert's performance as Erika Kohut, ably supported by Annie Girardot as her mother. Unfortunately, the role of Walter Klemmer, unconvincingly written as it is, cannot be saved by Benoît Magimel and constitutes the film's major defect.If you're looking for some metaphysical profundity about the human condition or a cutting allegory about society, look elsewhere. This is a sometimes clumsy depiction of masochism and particularly of sadism partially, but not wholly redeemed, by some fine acting.

"The Piano Teacher" is a 1983 novel by Elfriede Jelinek, that has been adapted for the screen by Michael Haneke. I've never read the original source material, but through reading a plot summary it seems Mr. Haneke hits a majority of the themes and scenarios represented. Michael Haneke has a certain approach to characters in his movies that I've come to respect a great deal. Aside from shooting his works effortlessly, he has always depicted his characters in a way as to never manipulate the audience, but allow their actions and mannerisms remain open to interpretation for each individual. This allows for less formulaic performances, and a story like "The Piano Teacher" can benefit greatly with this approach.Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert), is a piano professor at a prestigious music conservatory. Already in her forties, she still lives in an apartment with her domineering mother (Annie Girardot), leading to much frustration between the pair. Eventually Erika meets Walter Klemmer (Benoit Magimel), a 17 year old engineering student and eventually both develop an obsession with each other. Even though she initially tries to sever contact between them, his persistence eventually leads to his discovery of her personal and quite frank voyeurism.For as challenging as the film may get, it never begins to become tedious. Granted for a 2 hour picture the story feels a little stretched, yet it's Haneke's camera work and Huppert's fantastic performance that makes this all so highly engaging and unique. The music is implemented while forged extraordinarily well, and the levels of S&M can become extremely uncomfortable towards the third act, which finally made me realised why so many reviews I've read said it became "unpleasant" viewing. Regardless, it all leads to a stunning conclusion and I highly recommend this movie. If we can live in a time where fan-fiction like "Fifty Shades of Grey" sells millions, then "The Piano Teacher" is in a league of its own and should be praised and held in a much higher regard. Final Verdict: Isabelle Huppert made the movie for me. She really transcends what could've been expected, and my predicaments towards the stories conclusion were consistently altered. 9/10.

This movie is an evil vortex sucking everything positive out of life as we know it. It leaves you feeling offended, disturbed and utterly disappointed. I was appalled at how many awards it has actually won. It directly indicates that critics and the public accept and applaud child abuse, sadomasochism, incest, the bludgeoning of women and then raping them, jealousy turning into assault, pornography, slavery & elitism. The slogan of this movie should be: "Love = Rape". The marketing department fell off the bus when they took the motto "Sex Sells" and turned it into "Rape Sells". Don't allow this movie to severely distort your view of what love should be between a man and a woman. How can one trust critics and their ratings on any other movie if filth like this is praised so much!? Real life is already teeming with so much evil, stealing our joy. Upon watching this drivel you are giving evil permission to once again, pilfer what little joy you have left, and slapping you in the face with it. Why would anyone in their right mind want to waste more than 2 hours of their time just to feel bereft of any positivity?