The Piano Teacher (2001)

La Pianiste
The Piano Teacher

My Rating

3.62
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Release Date:
Country: France, Austria, Germany
Genre: Drama, Romance/Dating
Production Companies: Wega Film, MK2 Films, Les Films Alain Sarde, ARTE France Cinéma, Bavaria Film International, OFI
Watched by: 912 of 1 008 009
Runtime:
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Overview

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.

Trailers

3
Trailer
The Piano Teacher Official Film Trailer

News

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Reviews

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10
There is, of course, a lot of classical music and piano playing in the film with that name. And there is also a lot of unhealthy sexuality in it, the frightening codependency of a mother and her adult daughter, and the black abysses in the soul opening up against the background of all this. The film is interesting to watch, although at times it is unpleasant. From an artistic point of view, it is a very good work, memorable and impressive.
Darkproper88
Darkproper88
PRO
15 Sep 2024, 19:49 #
The film is about masochism, and not particularly exciting, but more vile. I didn't understand the film, I didn't understand the motivation of the main character, I didn't understand the motivation of her student, the mother. It's a strange picture, an art house, but it's kind of overdone
User of MyShows
User of MyShows
02 Jan 2025, 00:49 #
Comment has been deleted
Meowser
Meowser
17 Mar 2025, 12:29 #
Be careful with your desires, because they can come true.

She's like a stained windshield. Maybe it's a reflection of what's going on in your head.

From the very first minutes, hatred and disgust became the flagship of my feelings when watching. First to the mother of the main character, then to her entourage, and by the middle to herself. Not because of her secret preferences, no, there's enough dirt in my soul not to be disgusted by other people's kinks and weaknesses. My disgust and hatred are more directed towards this vile snobbery of the Austrian Bohemian. To all these people who have made classical music a cult and scraped everything human out of themselves. Almost the entire teaching staff, parents, and the heroine herself simply do not see their students as living people, but only as tools that require customization. It's disgusting.
And even though I understand the nature of such a rotten exterior, I couldn't empathize with Erica. The peak of my disgust for her was her act in the wardrobe, which has no justification and cannot be.
Well, Walter could become for her, albeit distorted, but an angel who raised her from this sewer of intelligence, who managed to save her cold concrete soul. But she had already brought all the dirt from his soul to the surface, tearing off his wings and lowering him to her level. However, no one is saying that he wasn't the same from the beginning.

For me, it's not an erotic drama or even a love movie. And the story is about how frighteningly strange cognitive distortions can be, how senselessly stupid imaginary intelligence can be. How an attitude towards beauty can harden and destroy humanity, and sexual deviance and violence can distort the soul, making it brighter for what it is customary to avoid. This is not a movie about love, not about good, not about evil, but about power. About the power over the body and mind, the power of the teacher over the student, the man over the woman, the strong over the weak. Or maybe I'm just as sick as his characters, like the rest of us. In any case, this is the kind of film that you need to come back to more often, studying how you will perceive it next time.
realpluviophile
realpluviophile
PRO
24 Mar 2025, 00:31 #
Such a peculiar film. It's beautiful, interesting, and intriguing. Especially when there are similar moments in your life and people in similar situations.
Yevulik
Yevulik
19 May 2025, 02:51 #
If the Jungian archetype of Shadow were a movie...
dirtyaesthete
dirtyaesthete
18 Dec 2025, 21:29 #
What I just watched, and most importantly, why 🤮
escalion
escalion
22 Dec 2025, 07:17 #
One of the most interesting movies I've watched in the last couple of months. When I sat down to watch the movie, I thought it would be an ordinary love drama, but it turned out to be much more complicated and interesting. For me, the magic is that throughout the movie you don't know what the main characters are going to do next. And when they do act, no matter how vile or anti-human their act is, it fits into the narrative of the film and can be justified. 5/5
coyot_1
coyot_1
PRO
29 Jan 17:32 #
Uh, well, let's start with the fact that the film is not for the mass audience. Let's go over the pros and cons. Pros: classical music plays throughout the film, which pleases the ear, but what is happening on the screen is not pleasing to the eye. The atmosphere of depression and hopelessness, more or less good acting. Cons: unpleasant explicit scenes, an incomprehensible and difficult ending, where they show that everything is there with a bang. At first, I felt sorry for the mother, how her daughter was doing to her, but then I realized that they were a pair of boots, both fucked up: the mother with her hypercontrol, and the daughter with her terrible desires. It's not clear why the guy was attracted to a 30+ woman, although in the end it became clear that he was fucked too. As I understood the film, even the most intelligent people in our environment have their cockroaches in their heads. Yes, the film is disgusting, but I can't say that it's terrible, it's made for its audience. It was interesting for me to see something so disgusting, but it's not a horror for show. You can take a look if you like filth, the movie is basically for once, I wouldn't watch it again.
No matter what, maybe even despite everything that happened in this movie, I want to kiss on the bathroom floor of the conservatory.
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