La pianiste (2001)

English Title: The Piano Teacher.
Synopsis: A sadomasochistic piano teacher who lives with her obnoxious mother is doted upon by a young engineer who is also a music lover.
Appraisal: I am traditionally oversuspicious when it comes to films that aim to be accurate psychological portrayals of individuals on the brink of insanity. I have always the feeling that these films walk a thin line between truth and baloney. Maybe it's just me, of course. That being said, my impression is that 'La pianiste' has more insight into the human soul than usual; or at least it has a more coherent development. To be honest, initially I had some reservations about the character of the mother, whose obnoxiousness seemed too exaggerated to be real, but once I read that the inspiration for the character was Jelinek's mother I decided to suspend my disbelief. Another point that rubbed me in the wrong way was how the main character metamorphoses from a totally cold person into an overemotional one, without explicit indication of the process that led to it. It's not an absurd change, I admit it, once you consider that she was living in a state of unstable equilibrium, but since nothing is shown one has to accept it on faith (one of the reasons a novel is usually more satisfying than a film based on it -- though I haven't read this one). All in all, I liked the movie; it comes off as a little schematic and/or strained at times (I can't believe that in this day and age a young man would be in the least concerned about someone telling his mother that he was looking at the porn magazines at a newsagent), and the ending is not exactly satisfactory, but these flaws do not compromise the movie in a serious way.
Rating: 62