A young man romantically pursues his masochistic piano teacher.A young man romantically pursues his masochistic piano teacher.A young man romantically pursues his masochistic piano teacher.
- Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 18 wins & 23 nominations total
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIsabelle Huppert really played the piano in the film. She had studied piano for 12 years. As preparation for her role as a piano teacher, she resumed practicing a year before the film was started.
- GoofsWhen Walter starts his piano audition; in the background, there are various teachers sitting in certain chairs. However in the following shot which is a medium-long shot of Kohut while Walter is performing; one of the female teachers is sitting in a different chair and a male teacher that was closest to Kohut is no longer sitting there but his belongings are on the chair. Then in the following shot after that, after Walter finishes his audition; the missing male teacher is back in his seat.
- Quotes
Erika Kohut: After all, love is built on banal things.
- Alternate versionsThe R-rated edition from Kino makes a number of changes and omissions, removing the shots of the hardcore peep booth footage viewed by Huppert's character in the mall, as well as optically pixellating pornographic images on magazine covers in the sex shop. In addition, this version completely removes the following two sequences: -Huppert's cutting sequence in the bathtub -Magimel taking Huppert to the ground and humping her at the hockey rink. In the latter case, the film awkwardly fades out and in again in quick succession, to elide the missing footage.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The 2003 IFP Independent Spirit Awards (2003)
- SoundtracksPiano Sonata in A Major, D.959
Franz Schubert
Featured review
See this for Isabelle Huppert
As with all Haneke films, make your own decision--don't be swayed by what you read and if you are interested in someone using the medium of film for their own unique ends, see it yourself. Isabelle Huppert is stunning in this film--combined with Haneke, these two never pull their punches. Haneke reels us in with the lure of golden boy, Benoit Magimel, but this is an anti-romance as much as Funny Games was an anti-thriller. You'll have to force yourself to watch much of it and the catharsis is much more in the range of sustained anxiety than any kind of emotional release but it's incredibly nervy and thought provoking; Haneke continues to hold up a mirror to how desensitised Western civilization is or has become. People may turn their noses up at this but it's only taking what Solondz did in Happiness a few steps further. While grounded in reality, much of what Erika (Huppert) does can be viewed as emotional metaphor. I'm not recommending it but I wouldn't dissuade you either...it definitely divides people but given it's largely about repression--that's no surprise.
helpful•398
- bliss66
- Apr 20, 2002
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Details
Box office
- Budget
- ATS 70,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,012,069
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $29,671
- Mar 31, 2002
- Gross worldwide
- $6,766,708
- Runtime2 hours 11 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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