The Piano Teacher
- IMDb link: 0254686
- IMDb rating: 7.5 (80,637 votes)
- Genres: Drama, Music, Romance
- Director: Michael Haneke
- Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Benoit Magimel, Annie Girardot, Susanne Lothar and others
- Release date: 31 Aug 2001
- Release year: 2001
- Runtime: 131 minutes
- Country: France, Austria, Germany
- Keywords: mother daughter relationship, sex shop, rape, piano instructor, disturbed woman, self inflicted wound, sex encounter, watching someone having sex, piano, razor
Plot:
Erika Kohut is a pianist, teaching music. Schubert and Schumann are her forte, but she's not quite at concert level. She's approaching middle age, living with her mother who is domineering then submissive; Erika is a victim then combative. With her students she is severe. She visits a sex shop to watch DVDs; she walks to a drive-in theater to stare at couples having sex. Walter is a self-assured student with some musical talent; he auditions for her class and is forthright in his attraction to her. She responds coldly then demands he let her lead. Next she changes the game with a letter, inviting him into her fantasies. How will he respond; how does sex have power over our other faculties?