Walter Klemmer's about-face
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magnoliaspringsal — 13 years ago(December 07, 2012 08:21 PM)
Fascinating, intriguing film, so
very
well played by Isabelle Huppert. And I agree, much more satisfying than Cach as while there was no definitive conclusion, at least we weren't left wondering who sent the tapes.
I have read and appreciate the comments and insight, particularly from a female point of view. As a disclaimer and somewhat with tongue in cheek, I have to say I didn't understand Walter's reaction as had Isabelle Huppert made an offer like that to me tie me up, control me, choose my clothes the mother would have been in a Nursing Home by the weekend and come Sunday brunch, Isabelle would have been frying my eggs over easy wearing nothing but nibble clamps.
When Walter does react poorly to the letter, I thought in a way, he was playing inadvertently to her wishes. It appeared she didn't mind being humiliated. She humiliates herself even further by following him to his hockey game wearing a colorfly out-of-character frock to lay herself for the taking on the floor of the supply room.
I agree that he is a "ruthless seducer" and doesn't like it when the 'game' does not follow his rules. I can see and agree that he is over his depth but wonder why you think Erika is also (over her depth)?
Two reasons.. the first is that there is a scene where Erika locks herself in the bathroom to cut herself. Perhaps I'm wrong but I took that as a masochistic act. Secondly, I think she could have taken - and enjoyed - some slapping. However, Walter injures her. There's a big difference.
Again, a wonderful film and some great threads here with the gamut of interpretations and opinions. -
PoppyTransfusion — 13 years ago(December 08, 2012 02:04 AM)
I have to say I didn't understand Walter's reaction as had Isabelle Huppert made an offer like that to me tie me up, control me, choose my clothes the mother would have been in a Nursing Home by the weekend and come Sunday brunch, Isabelle would have been frying my eggs over easy wearing nothing but nibble clamps.
Is that because she is Isabelle Huppert or other reasons ..?
I think Erika was out-of-her-depth because she underestimates Walter, assuming she has influence over him, and she seems to assume too that he will be receptive to her sexual desires and he's not. Also I think she is an emotionally vulnerable woman because she's very naive and someone like Walter can, and indeed does, take advantage of her. I'm (most) slowly reading the book and Erika's character is slightly different in the book to the film in that I thought she was a virgin in the film but she's not in the book. What the book makes plain and it is in the film too, is that she relates to people through her own fantasy world in which people are easily categorised objects. Walter is one such object. This type of relating leaves the person vulnerable as 'objects' have a way of reacting unpredictably.
Fatima had a fetish for a wiggle in her scoot -
magnoliaspringsal — 13 years ago(December 09, 2012 03:54 PM)
Isabelle Huppert would have been merely the icing on the cake.
From an amazon.com review of the book
"I started reading this book in its French (which I read almost fluently)translation from German but could not follow it. Because I found the subject interesting, I took the English (my native language) translation out of the library but found that I could not follow that either. It is the story of a truly disturbed Austrian female piano teacher. It is interesting but, for me (and I can read classical Chinese), more abstruse than I could deal with.
For a Daniel Auteuil fan, "Strange Crime" is one worth watching. I saw it this weekend. Drama, mystery, twists. -
PoppyTransfusion — 13 years ago(December 10, 2012 07:12 AM)
Thanks for the film rec.
I don't agree with the book reviewer. I'm reading it in English translation and it's comprehensible. It's difficult to follow because there is no dialogue or external description, every bit of prose is the internal world of one of the characters and it moves from character to character without any signposting, which I find clever. It's ironic and very mocking of the characters and make sme smile as much as it sometimes appalls.
Fatima had a fetish for a wiggle in her scoot -
molypocho — 12 years ago(September 19, 2013 06:55 AM)
Hey, so I finally went back and rented The Piano Teacher and rewatched the restroom scene. Here's how it goes:
She's giving him a handjob. You can see her arm pumping continuously. He says, "But I love you".
He's protesting her dispassionate approach to sex. You can try to talk your way around it, but I'm a guy and you're not, and I know that if a "pretty lady" wants to give me a dispassionate handjob in the restroom, 9 times out of 10 I'm not going to protest. Mostly guys just wanna get off. We're dogs when it comes to our dicks, remember? I'd only protest if I liked the girl a lot.
Also, you say "the ending [is] the biggest clue to him as a seducer", and I agree that his behavior appears flippant and dissembled, but my criticism has always been with Haneke's portrayal of the character. I'm not trying to defend the character, I'm saying Haneke fails to render a character fully encompassing the actions and traits attributed Walter. I do not find Walter's character credible. -
PoppyTransfusion — 12 years ago(September 20, 2013 11:08 AM)
We'll agree to disagree when he says 'But I love you', to me, that is all part of his game. It's more seduction and nothing more. Or, perhaps he wants ot believes a little in the infatuation and Erika is destroying it somewhat. Afterwards when he dances down the corridor and says she'll improve I saw this as the game and as Walter laughing at her.
I've finished reading the book now and Haneke did a really good job adapting it to film because the book's narrative consists of dialogue in the three characters' heads only. There is no outside, or objective, narration. To make a picture from thoughts in a character's head is pretty good going. The book makes Walter's seductions clearer than the film. I think the film was more sympathetic to all three whereas the book is an ironic and scathing satire on Austrian society and narcissism.
Why do you refuse to remember me? -
molypocho — 12 years ago(September 20, 2013 01:19 PM)
well I guess I can play
this
game too. You see, when he's dancing, it's just an evil spirit inhabiting him. That evil spirit slips into his urethra after he ejaculates. Hananke had to cut out the sound made by this evil spirit because it created some confusion with North American test audiences, but in his directors cut to be released near the twilight of his career, it's gonna be gushing loud and proud over surround sound systems across America. "Haha, take that you television junkies!"
In other words, Walter is not to blame for his mad dance of glee in the restroom! poor little guy.
Cause I don't think Haneke meant to create a sympathetic portrait, just a more immediately sensationalistic one. Guess we just disagree. -
molypocho — 12 years ago(September 26, 2013 07:25 AM)
I disagree. There is still something interesting here.
Because all art is artifice, it is each audience member's individual duty to fill a movie with meaning. Maybe someday someone will unveil two hours worth of a black screen and declare it art, and maybe a few days later someone else will call it a masterpiece. I won't join in though. How do we validate the worth of something when its value depends on subjective interpretation? Both of us can view the same identical five minutes worth of film, as we did here, and come away with two separate interpretations. We have reached an impasse.
Now I can only appeal a different film featuring a similarly duplicitous character and attempt to illuminate this character's expressed complexity in comparison to Walter's unsophisticated delineation.
So I'm gonna compare Jackie Brown to The Piano Teacher.
So, this is why I think Jackie Brown is better than The Piano Teacher:
Jackie Brown is a duplicitous character. She plays everybody and wins. But Tarantino is real beep smart, you see, so he lets the audience believe in Jackie, because, after all, she is fighting for her life, right? Who wouldn't cheer for the forty-something woman who has had to scratch and claw for everything in her life, all of which adds up to very little: a low income job and a small apartment throttled by the LAX's jet engines every two or three minutes (if you listen closely you can hear them, cause Tarantino is really beep smart). I believe in Jackie, but she's a fox, no doubt, she plays everybody, including her love interest, Max Cherry (Robert Forster). If you watch the movie one time, you probably won't notice, cause Tarantio's real beep smart, but if you watch it multiple times you might notice that Pam Grier's performance hits a few false notes. Or that's sometimes the complaint. But the truth is that Tarantino is real beep smart, ya see, and so he had Pam Grier leave a few traces of insincerity throughout her performance. Now sometimes you get blustering characters, like Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson), and no one is ever surprised to see the slime revealed. But Jackie comes off as genuine, and this allows her to acquire our sympathies. It is only by careful inspection that we can unlock her disingenuous tendencies. There's the scene when she yells at Ordell on the balcony. It's overacted. There's the scene where she runs through the mall in a panicky search for Ray (Michael Keaton). It's overacted. There's the scene in the interrogation room in which she convinces Ray that Melanie (Bridget Fonda) burst in her dressing room and stole all the money. It's overacted. During each of these scenes featuring Pam Grier's overacting Jackie Brown is engaged in perfidy. She's a liar! And then there's the scene where she's convincing Max Cherry over the phone to help her steal the money. It's not overacted, but you can almost taste the honeyed drip of seduction in her voice. The woman is false! A perfect charlatan! Hollywood usually fails to draw such subtle lines, and my claim is that Haneke fails as well. As a result, Walter's character in not credible. -
lynno_94 — 13 years ago(September 25, 2012 01:41 PM)
I thought too that the attitude shift was surprising and maybe uncalled for. But then I watched the movie again and got a better insight into the character. what i got from rewatching this movie (many times), I understood that, the firs time he reads the letter, he reacts as many people would do. they would treat her as if she were unstable because her desires don't correpond to social norms. and because of that, he considers her as 'inferior' to him, as weak, so he treats her that way. he loses some of his respect for her, because she gave in to those 'disgusting' urges. but i believe that, although a part of him was actually repulsed by her sadomasochistic nature, the revelation triggered a part of him he perhaps didnt know existed. a part that is by itself repulsive, in which he himself might be excited by the same things that entice her, such as sadomasochistic activities. Ashamed of having those urges that are unfamiliar to him and that he recognizes as intolerable in society, he is in denial and what's the best way to remain in denial? shut the subject completely down, and especially put down the person who might be influencing you. So in order to deny, he insults her, he calls her sick, he becomes verbally aggressive. I believe that, the more aggressive he got towards her, the more he was struggling with his own urges and desires.
And let's not forget he might hold now a grudge against her. if you think about it, if he does indeed becomes aware of his own sexual urges, it would've been because of her. so if he had anyone to blame for his 'descent' and degradation, he would blame her, he would hold her entirely responsible. and being so angry at her, he might be taking out on her his own frustrations (firstly, because he has to take it out on someone, and secondly, it's convenient that that someone should be her because he blames her). -
the_spiral — 12 years ago(October 19, 2013 04:59 AM)
Err before this thread goes off-topic, I'm going to say I understand the OP's credibility questions and I think book Walter is a much more consistently drawn character than movie Walter. In the book I think it's made very clear he's just trying to seduce her for the challenge, and that he is young, fickle, and somewhat misogynistic with a streak of cruelty that makes the attack at the end more understandable. She has rejected his overtures, attempted to gain control over the relationship, and injured his pride as a man and she must be "put in her place". The book has stronger feminist overtones, and there's no question Erika was victimized by an evil man who took advantage of her shyness and sexual repression.
The movie portrays Walter much more sympathetically: at least at first, he seems more innocent and claims to genuinely love her. I don't know if it's the actor's choice or Haneke's direction, but it does make his descent into primal violence somewhat jarring. I also think Isabelle Huppert is such a powerful, imperious presence it's hard to imagine her as anyone's victim, which gives the story more moral ambiguity. Again I don't know if it's an acting or directorial choice, but I reacted much differently to the characters in the book and the movie. -
tinasparklesau — 11 years ago(May 28, 2014 02:19 AM)
To put it bluntly and not very articulately, it's because Walter is a total d!ick! Granted, the letter does mess with his head (moreso later on) but he never had any genuine emotions for Erika. He saw her as a challenge, a conquest. He was p*ssed that his usual womanizing techniques didn't work, and then when he thought he'd finally won, the letter was a slap in the face regarding what he was expecting. Initially, on maybe a subconscious level the letter opened the floodgates of his own masochistic desires that he didn't know that he had. That made him a tad cranky too considering he was used to being so sure of himself.
Until the letter, it was all just a game to Walter. After the letter, he felt that he wasn't in control of the situation anymore (something he'd never encountered) and continued the relationship as a game on his own terms.