Strange, Indeed
This one mixes classical music and weird sexual perversion. I didn't know whether to chuckle or take it seriously. It is one of the more surreal movies you'll ever watch, debate or not about what it says about women and men. Very French, and by that I mean minimal, yet saying a lot, or seeming to, anyway. The whole thing is pretty senseless, in the end, I thought. The mother-daughter scenes will make you wince, or worse.

Indifference and love meet
Isabelle Huppert, plays a fastiduous piano teacher inside the establishments of French high culture and music. As a professional instructor, she is determined to turn students into fine piano players. Nevertheless outside her professional life, she descends into pornography and sexual taboo.

In the midst of her exploration of sexuality, a young male student falls in love with her. Why, don't ask? I don't think she has too much personality going for her myself. She constantly suppresses her intimate feelings, while her student devotes his unremitting attention to her.
I will spare you the the details. Warning, see this movie without your children.

A transgression of love
O' Isabelle Huppert, are you okay? I was previously blown away by her performance in Ma Mere, and she is way too convincing in this twisted role as well.
This is a story of love with no threshold or sustenance, no inkling of traditional romance, no redeeming qualities. Here love is a battle, a desperate struggle for control. It's actually pretty depressing.
You've got the cold, calculative piano instructor named Erika(Huppert) who has subtle ways of demoralizing her students. This might partially stem from her home life, where her elderly mother tries to control her every move. Aside from that, Erika has some extremely bizarre sexual fetishes lingering just below the surface.
And then she meets Walter, a handsome young student that gets drawn in to her perverse world. The outcome is quite unsettling. There is a sex scene as strange and unappealing as the one between Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue in Leaving Las Vegas.
This art movie is a lot to absorb. Director Haneke comes through again.

Prepare yourself
I was originally attracted to this film because I am/was a pianist and I was interested to see a French take on a movie involving a musician.

Wow... upon first viewing, I was quite shocked. There are some scenes in this movie that are downright disturbing. If you've seen any French film, you may know what to expect. If you haven't, this may not be the right film to start with. Ultimately, it was very well acted and well directed. The special features aren't enormous, but what is there is quite interesting, including an interview with Isabelle Huppert.

It's hard to describe, really. If you're used to American film, you probably won't like it right away. Give it a chance. If you don't like it, that's fine.

Powerful and Disturbing
After I saw "La Pianiste" several years ago, I said to myself that I would never see it again, so powerful and disturbing it was. Time went on but I could not get the movie and its main character, Erika Kahut out of my mind. The story of a respected Piano teacher in Vienna Conservatory, cool and collected on the surface, an expert in classical music, with the inner world so dark and disturbing with the demons of fear, self-loathing and self destruction strong enough to ruin her demanded more than one viewing. I read the book "The Piano Teacher" by Elfriede Jelinek, the controversial Nobel Prize winner in literature that the film is based on and after reading it I saw the film again. Second time, all pieces of puzzle came to the right places. Not very often an outstanding harrowing book is transferred to the screen with such brilliancy as "Le Pianiste". Three actors gave outstanding performances. Franz Schubert's Piano music, "soaked in the morbid humanity", is another bright star of the movie.

I only have one problem with Haneke's vision. There is a scene in the film where Haneke made some changes to Erika's character comparing to the novel. In the book, the furthest she went to reveal herself to Walter, the young student in the conservatory who became attracted to her was in a letter. As soon as he realized what he was dealing with and showed to her how much he was repulsed by that, she had stopped communicating with him. Erika of the book would never chase Walter to throw herself to him. She kept everything inside - she did not like to act, she was not a chaser - she loved to watch. The big scene during the hockey game was not necessary. It tried to make Erika sympathetic (and of course, Huppert was heartbreaking) but it took the mystery that surrounded her - Jelinek did not write that scene, it sounded and looked false in otherwise excellent film.

4.5/5 or 9/10