What about the knife at the end ?
-
Saturnome — 18 years ago(April 04, 2008 11:03 PM)
That was her way out (of her life). Being so restrained made of her some kind of monster, but her life was equilibrated enough (super strict classical music training blocking her sexual desire, but it being blocked may have made it grown worse), until Walter broke that balance. Things couldn't work anymore.
Also she's just completely crazy.
Just sharing my opinion. -
archento — 17 years ago(April 05, 2008 01:16 PM)
I wonder, too: Do you think that Klemmer possibly assumes Erika's role at the film's end? Of being abusive/sadistic, if not toward himself, then toward others? If Erika leaves, then doesn't someone have to fill in to play the piece so the singer can perform? Was Klemmer playing that song during one of his lessons? If so, then it's perfectly plausible to think this is to be inferred.
-
IndiegroundFilms — 17 years ago(March 12, 2009 03:47 AM)
I thought something similar while watching thisI don't think it could be assumed or expected that he would get up to play the piece in her absence, but I think it is implied that he could very get up in front of the crowd and play it. It was a big deal for her to get to that point, but it was easy for him.
Alsoand I never read the book, so I don't know if this is answered therebut I got the sense that she brought the knife in order to stab him, but when he saw him arrive with his gaggle of friends, seeing him smiling and jovial as though everything that had happened the night before was meaningless, that put her over the edge. -
Helena727 — 10 years ago(April 20, 2015 11:15 AM)
I don't think she intended to stab him. I think the kninfe-in-purse was analogous to the razor-in-purse, only bigger because now, after the violent encounter with Walter, her pain is even greater than it was. She always needs to have at her disposal some method of self-harm that's one way of feeling in control.
"Till September, Petronella" a great short story by one of the greatest and too-little-known writers of the 20th c., Jean Rhys begins with the narrator (a very lost young woman) saying that once she realized she could kill herself any time she chose, she felt better.
From Isabelle Huppert, on control (tho not specifically about the knife):
In the case of La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher), Michael Haneke talks about control and loss of control, and he was filming a woman who I felt was more identified with the situation of the director. This is a woman who controls her desire, exactly as a director controls his own desire and the audience's desire. In the film, the woman is not the object of desire, she is the one who wants to control her desire. That is why as a film - I'm not even talking about the story - as a film it is interesting because he has changed the status of an actress in a film. That is why the sexual scenes were easier for me to do because I am not set up in the usual situation of being an object of a man's desire, I am the one who controls the desire of the man. So I felt completely protected by this change of focus. -
Acornucopiaolove — 17 years ago(April 14, 2008 04:41 PM)
She was also taking back control of the relationship that she had with Walter,
throughout the movie you can see who has the control in each scene, and this
was her way to take back control (along with what everyone else has been saying) -
wwolf-8 — 17 years ago(July 27, 2008 01:23 PM)
I agree. First I thought that she brings the knife, because she want to get in touch emotionally with Walter, by trying to commit suicide in front of him, but after I watched it again: no. When she saw what she teached to the boy, and there's no way back, she reached for that moment, grabbed it, and finally escaped. From the bars of the music. Erika left, there were no concert that evening, but she paid with her life for that freedom of insanity.
-
Petie3-2 — 16 years ago(September 09, 2009 06:31 AM)
IMHO Haneke's films are sadistic and twisted. 'Funny Games' is the most perverted film I ever saw. Haneke wants to get your hopes up then crush them in the most visually shocking manner possible.
He is of the avant-garde, anarchist, depressing school of crap. Filmography is OK though. -
Keely — 10 years ago(July 11, 2015 06:39 AM)
I agree with samuelbronkowitz. I don't think she died and I don't even necessarily think she brought the knife to attack Walter. This is a woman who self mutilates all the time to escape emotional pain. The knife to her was no more than a lipstick or change purse. I don't think she intended to kill herself. She discovered that when she finally got what she wanted all her life to be sexually subjugated and beaten with her mother in the next room it did nothing for her and left her just as dead inside as before. So cutting herself in the chest was just another step in what she already had been doing to herself - remember the bathtub?
Walter snubbed her at the concert, and knifing herself was her release. At first I thought it was going to be the Madame Butterfly scene but then you could see that the wound wasn't that deep, and it wa not in her heart, so she didn't kill herself. -
rocking-horse — 17 years ago(August 22, 2008 07:01 AM)
In the book, she puts a knife in her purse because she intends to kill Walter, but changes her mind after seeing him happy, with friends, 'in the helo of sunshine' or something. In the end, she feels no anger towards him but realises that she is completely alienated and incompetent at life. She stabs herself in the heart but the wound is only superficial. In the end, Erika just hurries home. A very sad story, really.
-
GleamingMemory — 17 years ago(March 04, 2009 02:10 PM)
I don't think she intended to kill herself and I don't think she dies by that wound. I do think that she inflicts that wound on herself as a way to take back the power from Walter: only she can hurt herself in a way that Walter never can.
-
betweenthelinesfilms — 17 years ago(March 04, 2009 11:50 PM)
I appreciate all of these comments. I just finished this film for the first time, and I am left a tad ambivalent, but I do agree with the one poster who alluded to Schumann before he finally tips the edge of sanity. Thanks to the poster who noted the motives in the book-very helpful. I bought this film on the strength of Benoit's magnificent performance in LE ROI DANSE-a very talented actor.