Pianiste, La
Erika Kohut is a piano teacher at the Vienna Conservatory prestigious music school in Vienna. In her early forties and single, she lives with her overprotective and controlling mother in a hermetically sealed world of love-hate and dependency, where there is no room for men. Her sex life consists of voyeurism and masochistic self-injury.
Lonely and alienated, Erika finds solace by visiting sex shops and experimenting with masochism. Ata a recital, she befriends Walter, a handsome young man, whom she seduces and with whom she begins an illicit affair. As Erika slowly drifts closer to the brink of emotional disorder, she uses the love-stricken Walter to explore her darkest sado-masochistic fantasies, which eventually lead to her undoing.
Directed by
Michael Haneke
Cast
Isabelle Huppert - Erika Kohut
Annie Girardot - The Mother
Benoit Magimel - Walter Klemmer
Anna Sigalevitch - Anna Schober
Susanne Lothar - Mrs Schober
Udo Samel - Doctor Blonskij
Production Co.
MK2 International
Cinea-Les Film Alain Sarde
Cie/Arte France Cinema
WEGA-Film
Nippon Herald Films, Inc
Produced by
Michael Katz
Veit Heiduschka
Marin Karmitz
Yvon Crenn
Alain Sarde
Christine Gozlan
Studio
MK2 International
Writer
Michael Haneke
Elfriede Jelinek
Music
Martin Achenbach
