"The Piano Teacher" was a huge hit at this year's Cannes Film Festival and with David Lynch presiding over the judges, it fared very well. And no wonder, "The Piano Teacher" is just the sort of film you'd expect Lynch to like. It is, however, in no discernable way Lynchian. It is, rather, a film that moves slowly, trusts its own pacing and simmers, then boils, to a dramatic conclusion that is surprising and audacious.

Isabelle Huppert is simply stunning as the titular professor. Huppert has brilliant moment after brilliant moment here. Her engrossing characterization of a woman so staggered by life that she has become a stoic, lifeless, heartless bitch is breathtaking. Director Michael Haneke and Huppert create a vision of a woman so stone cold, so devoid of emotion, that one cannot even understand her. As little cracks in her facade are shown, we begin to think we understand her. But Haneke, working from his script based on Elfriede Jelinek's novel, takes us to such odd and profoundly disturbing areas in this woman's psyche and experiences that we don't know what to think. The film never ceases to amaze and yet repulse with its images of a dark sexual underbelly far too complex and too troublesome to be comprehendible.

Haneke's camera is as bold and as assured as Huppert's professor herself. Haneke often lets his camera sit motionless while it frames a picture that remains as static and seemingly lifeless as the protagonist. His final climactic sequence, which is one long unflinching shot, is both harsh and beautiful, both poignant and disturbing, much like the story itself. Haneke may seem to be emulating the French New Wave here but he does so in a way that makes the film uniquely his own. The Austrian director, so adept at making films which seem to lack any stylishness at all, here creates a film whose camera mimics its theme. He's not dazzling us with his camera, his edits, his pacing, his style. Rather, he lefts the film evolve around his story and his characters, creating a fluid camera, a precise edit, a perfect pace and a unique style. He does so in a subtle and sly way. His mastery comes from seeming not to do anything particularly unique at all.

Haneke's theme here is one of sexual repression and sexual deviation so twisted that it often seems absurd. Yet the film is nothing if not realistic. There is a sort of marketing and critical buzz about the film that may suggest to some that the film is titillating or prurient. This is so far from the truth as to be almost humorous. "The Piano Teacher" is a character study of a woman so sexually repressed and so desperate for a sexual outlet that she self-destructs when the possibility of true love presents itself.

With it's beautiful imagery, it's astounding camera work, it's sparse and arid storytelling and it's fearless script, "The Piano Teacher" is one of the most challenging films to be seen at the arthouse theaters this summer. It will no doubt bring accolades and nominations come Oscar time for Huppert and Haneke. (The film festival circuit has already rewarded them handsomely). For the casual viewer, however, this film will challenge the very notion of what story is and what film represents.

Like "Last Tango in Paris," "The Piano Teacher" is a French film unflinching in its presentation of a sexual liaison out of control. Like "Kids," it offers us a inside view to the sexual world of characters who seem so normal on the outside, but whose sexual infantilism eventually defeats them. This is a masterpiece of cinema.

Note:

The music of Schubert is used and is important to the plot.

The posters for the American films "Frequency" and "The Skulls" are prominent in one scene.

Report Card Script: A+ Acting: A+ Cinematography\Lighting: A+ Special Effects\Make Up: A+ Music: A+ Final Grade: A+

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