2023 Blind Spot Series: The Piano Teacher

-

 


What I knew going in: I had seen parts of it prior from IFC's Indie Sex documentary

Erika (Isabelle Huppert) is a sexually repressed piano teacher still living with her domineering mother. (Annie Girardot) When she's not teaching music at a prestigious college, she's sneaking into sex shops, watching porn, and fantasizing about being beaten. She equates pain with sex. Then she meets Walter (Benoit Magimel) a student who pursues her.

Let's just pretend it's still June for a minute. I was at home a whopping 10 days last month and my poor blog just didn't get the attention it deserved. So to beat myself up about it, I decided June would be dedicated to this weird ass movie. 

Everything about this is SO uncomfortable. Would it be a Michael Hanke film without that feeling? I couldn't help but be reminded of the mother/daughter relationship in Black Swan when watching this. I wonder if they took inspiration from it? Everything about this is cold and unlikable but I still couldn't take my eyes off it. You want so badly to be a voice of reason to Erika. To tell her she's going about everything the wrong way, but of course you can't.

Huppert is magnetic as always. This is easily the best performance of hers I've seen. Magimel felt very green, which makes sense for Walter as a character, but this is absolutely Huppert's show.

My biggest gripe was the film's ambiguity. Parts feel lazy because he absolutely could've written something better, but Hanke has his style.  

Grade: B-

Comments

  1. BirgitJuly 6, 2023 at 11:09 AM

    I've missed you! You must be quite busy. I haven't seen this film and not sure I will. It sounds frustrating to me and I bet the ending is ambiguous

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJuly 11, 2023 at 7:47 AM

      I missed you too! I was out of town for a few weeks, and was one of those lucky people stranded in airports because of storms lol. Glad to be back home.

      Delete
  2. thevoid99July 6, 2023 at 4:11 PM

    This was a pretty insane film to watch as I own it on DVD (though I need to upgrade that and nearly my entire collection to Blu-Ray) as it's been a long time since I've seen it. It is an intense film but this what to expect from someone like Michael Haneke. I did learn that in the last scene of the film, Eva Green is there as one of the young people who attends this concert as it was one of her first film roles. This film still makes those Fifty Shades movies look like child's play.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJuly 11, 2023 at 7:47 AM

      Now I need to go back and look for Eva lol. Cache is still my favorite of Haneke's. Nothing has come close for me yet.

      Delete
  3. joel65913July 6, 2023 at 7:56 PM

    I haven't seen this and I doubt that I ever will. I've had the opportunity and never took advantage because it just seems distasteful. Isabelle Huppert is an excellent actress but I frequently don't care for her choice of material. She's daring and that's great but some of the films I've seen where she takes those chances I've hated, this looks like this movie would add to that list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJuly 11, 2023 at 7:46 AM

      I feel you on her choices. I never bothered with Elle even though everyone raved about it because it just sounded like something I would hate.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing ...
Read more

Indie Gems: Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

-
Image
Passionate about your profession? I had never heard of this film until it ended up on one of Jason's favorite horror movie lists around Halloween. It immediately sounded interesting to me, so of course I threw it in my Netflix queue. (and if I'm just now watching it after adding it around Halloween, you know how ridiculous my queue is) Taylor (Angela Goethals) is a journalist who, along with a film crew decides to follow around a serial killer named Leslie Vernon. (Nathan Baesel) He plans on doing the typical slasher thing - getting a bunch of drunk teens in an abandoned house and knocking them off one by one. He gets advice from a retired serial killer, Eugene (Scott Wilson) and is threatened by a man who's on to him, Doc Holloran (Robert Englund) Taylor and crew are there capturing it all. Leslie Vernon is fucking hilarious to start with, and clearly very passionate about what he does. He tells Taylor all of his secrets and can barely contain his excitemen...
Read more

My Favorite Movie Youtube Channels

-
Image
Starting around 2018, I started watching Youtube for more than just movie trailers or music videos whenever a new one dropped. Now I'm in full blown subscription mode and don't bat an eyelash at watching a Youtube video that's over an hour long. I watch Youtube for a few different categories of content, but one of them that I love most is movie/TV essays and commentary, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. Below is a list of my favorite movie related Youtube channels. Let me know if you're familiar with them too, or if you have any you'd like to recommend to me.  Double Toasted - I'm honestly surprised this channel isn't bigger. I first came across Korey and Martin when they reviewed War for the Planet of the Apes a few months before it hit theaters and I thought they were hysterical. While their full length videos stream on Twitch, they often upload their movie reviews and commentary on youtube and they're always hilarious. They've...
Read more