| Movie Review of "The Piano Teacher" I�ve always had quite a great deal of respect for the Cannes Film Festival. Not only is it one of the oldest film festivals that showcases films from all over the world, it also gives independent film-making well-deserved media attention. Plus, it�s held in the south of France, which can�t get any better as far as beauty is concerned. Imagine holding a wine glass on a balmy evening, heading to the worldwide premiere of the latest film from that red hot Uzbek director, and then running into Julianne Moore just in front of the shoreline to the cobalt blue Mediterranean Sea, glistening away in the sunset. The idea is there. The pretension will probably kill me, but hey, it�s France. It�s also held in May, which gives me respite from the impending bombs and explosions during the summer movie season, allowing me to hope that better movies will come my way after the aliens are destroyed, the crazy natural disaster is averted, the villains are killed (but not before the good guys falter somewhat) and Arnold Schwarzenegger is crowned a hero and gets the girl. Have I mentioned the south of France? The films competing for the top prize at Cannes are almost always better than those that the Oscars lamely serve up.. I mean, �Gladiator�?! Or �Crouching Tiger, Hide That Damn Dragon Already�?! Or worse still, the movie with a plot that would have made an okay made-for-TV-movie, and that would have gone straight to cable or video if not for a certain actress, �Erin Brockovich�? I know, last year was pretty much a shit year for movies thinking back, but it did give us �Requiem For A Dream� and �You Can Count On Me�. However, you probably didn�t watch those. Your loss. Okay, enough with the ranting about the stupidity of the Oscar voters, let�s head back to the south of France. This year, two of the nominees for Best Film at Cannes were David Lynch�s latest �Mulholland Drive� (which I�ve heard, is a movie that is so mysteriously twisted that you invariably walk out having to discuss what happened) and a French film called �La Pianiste� (or �The Piano Teacher�). �Mulholland� only drives into theatres early next year where I am, while �The Piano Teacher� played in December. Those of you who read my review of �The Others� will hopefully remember that I�d promised then that the next review I'd post (ie. this one) is of an extremely awful film. Well, so you must be thinking : If Cannes is so good, is River Dawg going to review �Erin Brockovich�? Well, I could. Unfortunately, this year, the sun was probably out in full force at Cannes, thereby temporarily blinding many voters, and they all mistakably deemed �The Piano Teacher� good enough, in fact, so very good as to be nominated for Best Film. Is it another shit year in movies? Well, considering the fact that �Moulin Rouge� is actually standing a really good chance of winning Best Film, I guess it is. I mean, even Cannes screwed up this year. �The Piano Teacher� is a French film set in Vienna and is actually adapted from a book. It tells the story of a middle-aged piano teacher who still lives with her mother, is strict with her students, does not show emotion or allow herself to feel, and watches pornography in her spare time. Yes, that last part was right. Your eyes weren�t playing a trick on you. Anyway, because she has been so frigid, she is led to believe that the wonderful things which happen on porn are what men and women really want. Enter a young French university student, who is somewhat besotted with her and she actually likes him, but draws him into this sadomasochistic world of hers. In the end, something rather tragic happens (this film is not worth watching, so I will actually tell you what this is later on). Given that it is, after all, a character-driven film, the plot actually sounds pretty good. It intrigued me enough to want to check it out. Unfortunately, the end product was shockingly pathetic. This film can be divided into two parts : the boring first part, and the pornographic second part. There is actually a third part � the senseless part � but I am inclined to believe that senselessness is actually a subset of pornography, so I�m letting it stand as how I define it. The boring part begins by introducing us to the characters, especially the piano teacher played by Isabelle Huppert (who, bless her, did a fantastic job, and deservedly won her Best Actress award at Cannes). We learn that she�s cold and strict with her students, unsympathetic to her mother and indulges in the viewing of pornographic film (I feel dirty already) at the sex shop. This would all be well and good except that it�s dragged out for close to forever, and I aged 4 months in the theatre. Then enter the French student (dunno his name, but he bizarrely won the Best Actor at Cannes, which is confounding to say the very least) and begins this little relationship. He likes her (problem #1 : it�s never believable why this is so � she is, after all, much older than him) while she tries to deny her emotions (problem #2 : we don�t know why she decides to give in when she eventually does). Cat-and-mouse blah blah. This utterly boring part (you know you�re in trouble when you look at the watch and they haven�t even begun to fall in love yet) takes much too long even though it covers only over a-third of the film. Then, the part all of you have been wanting to get to (don�t think I dunno) � the pornographic part of the movie. Teacher goes to sex shop, watches porn, then picks up tissue paper from the bin, tissue paper that contains certain unmentionable bodily fluids, and SNIFFS it. I�m about to vomit thinking back on it all. Then after a recital rehearsal, she ends up in a toilet with him and gives him a handjob but refuses to let him touch her. Then they return to her house and she makes him read this disgusting letter she wrote, filled with pornographic requests of the sickest nature. Sex toys come out from under the bed, he�s so sickened he leaves. She then goes to find him at the ice hockey rink where he plays ice hockey, they make up, she blows him but ends up vomiting on the floor. He is disgusted by it all. Then, he turns up at her place one night, confesses that she has changed him since the letter (problem #3 : we are never given any indication of this change, and a character speaking it is such a sad form of character development) and so he fulfils her fantasy by hitting her and raping her (problem #4 : huh?) only that she realizes it�s not as mutually enjoyable as they do it in the porn video (problem #5 : duh). He then tells her it�s best that she keeps quiet about it. I�m tearing my hair already, thinking back on the travesty of it all. I honestly feel dirty writing this damn review. I need to go take a shower after this, and bring my computer with me as well. The next day, at some recital, she is meant to play the piano but she hides a bread knife in her purse. Then, he turns up with a group of friends and pretends nothing has happened and says how he is looking forward to the recital. Then she stabs herself with a bread knife (you do that, sister) but gets nothing more than a skin tear. She then leaves the theatre, probably 90 minutes later than when I should have. Fade to black. Duh. The main problem, I think, is that the film was lazily adapted from the book. There was much too much porn (I�m not complaining on principle, but the fact is that you�re making a serious film, not a porn flick) at the expense of making the actions of the characters believable. I mean, the actors were good (Huppert in particular), but there is only that much a good actress can do. How the guy won Best Actor is beyond me. How this film won a Best Film nomination will remain one of the greatest mysteries of all time, along with crop circles, how the Nazca Lines in South America were formed and how the dinosaurs went extinct. R.D.�s Rating : Like Beethoven and Mozart, this �Piano Teacher� should have been laid to rest long ago. This one was a DEAD DAWG on arrival. (What�s a dead dawg? Check out R.D�s rating system here.) Sound off!! Did you part with a small fortune to watch this crap? Did you feel cheated too? Send me your frustrated tears here. |