The Piano Teacher.
I recently watched "The Piano Teacher," a French film from a couple of decades ago, and I wouldn't recommend it. I'd rate it around a 5 out of 10, and much of that score comes from the beautiful piano playing featured throughout the movie.
The film is supposed to be a strange erotic drama, but I think it falls short. While the behaviors depicted are within the range of weird human conduct, they feel frustratingly unmotivated. Characters shift their behaviors without any real sense of revelation or progression. It's as if the film suggests that because these characters are repressed or naive, they can suddenly do anything without deeper justification.
None of the characters are likable or pursue goals that the audience can root for. The plot is minimal, and the character development lacks believability. The connections between motivations and outcomes don't feel grounded in reality. It seems like the writer decided on certain actions for the characters and then retroactively assigned trite motivations: jealousy to justify cruelty, sexual frustration to explain perversity.
Additionally, the sex scenes and character interactions are awkward and disjointed. While this might be intentional, it left me questioning how these individuals reached this point in their lives. Overall, the film's execution left me unsatisfied and unconvinced by its portrayal of human behavior.
Maybe the book was better. I think the course of events could have happened in the real world but not with this set of characters and unfolding in the way it did.
Note, I saw the subtitled version of it, I know a little bit of French and some of it seemed off so my viewpoint might be tainted if the subtitling wasn't very good.
I see it's been a while since this was posted, but I just want to ask—has anyone here read the novel the film was based on? I'm curious how the character's psychology compares between the book and the movie. Sometimes films leave out parts that really help explain someone's behavior, and I wonder if that’s the case here.
I struggled with timing and hand coordination in the beginning, and what helped most was slowing everything way down. Playing each hand separately for a bit also made things smoother. If you're trying to learn piano from scratch, I’d recommend checking out Artmaster—it walks through stuff in an easy way and you can move at your own pace. Made those weird finger stretches feel way more doable.