La pianiste

Description

«The piano teacher Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert) still lives with her mother, who strictly monitors her life. Erika compensates her frustrations with voyeuristic excursions, self-mutilation, and torment – until a piano student gets too close and her neuroses spiral out of control. The sprawling, amorphous-satirical language convolutes of Elfriede Jelinek's novel are confidently transformed by Michael Haneke into a crystalline structure close to (bitter) grotesque: like a bourgeois tragedy that has lost its mourning. At the center of this story of an inward escape: the minimalist virtuoso performance by Isabelle Huppert, who, as Erika Kohut, pushes her alienation so far that she hardly seems to be playing.» (Christoph Huber, Austrian Film Museum) Cast and additional information: Director: Michael Haneke Screenplay: Michael Haneke Author: Elfriede Jelinek Cinematography: Christian Berger Music: Franz Schubert Editing: Monika Willi, Nadine Muse Cast: Isabelle Huppert (Erika Kohut), Benoît Magimel (Walter Klemmer), Annie Girardot (Mother), Anna Sigalevitch (Anna Schober), Susanne Lothar (Mrs. Schober), Udo Samel (Dr. George Blonskij), Cornelia Köndgen (Miss Gerda Blonskij), Thomas Weinhappel (Baritone), Georg Friedrich (Man in the auto cinema), Philipp Heiss (Naprawik)