The Piano Teacher

A respected professor has an affair with a gifted student and reveals her masochistic tendencies. Isabelle Huppert won an award at Cannes for her brilliant yet disturbing work. Directed by Michael Haneke, the movie is an adaptation of Elfriede Jelinek’s novel., Michael Haneke’s award-winning film stars Isabelle Huppert as a middle-aged piano teacher at a Viennese conservatory whose talent, discipline and harshness mask her sexual appetite for voyeurism, pornographic films and violent masturbation. Into her life comes student Benoit Magimel but when he approaches her, she explains any affair must be on her terms. Despite the extremes she dictates, Maginel is still drawn to her but his accession to her demands leads to violence and tragedy. In French with subtitles. Haneke’s latest film, Le Temps Des Lou , also stars Isabelle Huppert., Michael Haneke’s award-winning film stars Isabelle Huppert as a middle-aged piano teacher at a Viennese conservatory whose talent, discipline and harshness mask her sexual appetite for voyeurism, pornographic films and violent masturbation. Into her life comes student Benoit Magimel but when he approaches her, she explains any affair must be on her terms. Despite the extremes she dictates, Maginel is still drawn to her, but his accession to her demands leads to violence and tragedy., How far is a man willing to go to be with the woman he wants? Erika is a veteran piano instructor at a famous music conservatory in Vienna. She is highly respected for her remarkable talent, but is also known to be a harsh taskmistress. Erika seems to get her stern and unforgiving nature from her mother, with whom she still lives. Without a husband or a lover, Erika satisfies her strong and frequently perverse sexual appetites through extreme porn videos, voyeurism, and masturbatory practices that sometimes involve pain and self-mutilation. Erika discovers she has attracted the attentions of one of her students, Walter, a gifted and good-looking young man who does not seem at all put off by her icy personality. Erika refuses to fully satisfy Walter until he is willing to allow her to control the relationship. When he becomes aware of just how much pain and humiliation is involved in Erika’s erotic bill of fare, he refuses to participate, but in time his attraction to her causes him to weaken, and he begins to accede to her sexual demands.