Directed by Michael Haneke • 2001 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Benoît Magimel
In this riveting study of the dynamics of control, Academy Award–winning director Michael Haneke takes on Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek’s controversial 1983 novel about perverse female sexuality and the world of classical music. Haneke finds his match in Isabelle Huppert, who delivers an icy but quietly seething performance as Erika, a piano professor at a Viennese conservatory who lives with her mother in a claustrophobically codependent relationship. Severely repressed, she satisfies her masochistic urges only voyeuristically until she meets Walter (Benoît Magimel), a student whose desire for Erika leads to a destructive infatuation that upsets the careful equilibrium of her life. A critical breakthrough for Haneke, THE PIANO TEACHER—which won the Grand Prix as well as dual acting awards for its stars at Cannes—is a formalist masterwork that remains a shocking sensation.
Up Next in Starring Isabelle Huppert
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Home
Directed by Ursula Meier • 2008 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet, Adélaïde LerouxThis mesmerizing fable of modern family life stars Isabelle Huppert as Marthe, a happy-go-lucky mother whose family enjoys an idyllic existence in their isolated, ramshackle home, which edges ont...
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White Material
Directed by Claire Denis • 2009 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Christophe Lambert, Isaach De BankoléIn WHITE MATERIAL, the great contemporary French filmmaker Claire Denis, known for her restless, intimate dramas, introduces an unforgettably crazed character. Played by a ferocious Isabelle...
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In Another Country
Directed by Hong Sang-soo • 2012 • South Korea
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Yu Jun-sang, Jung Yu-miLegendary French actress Isabelle Huppert stars in the first English-language film from South Korean master Hong Sang-soo. In a triptych of overlapping stories, three different French women—a filmma...
