Can someone please explain the end? Spoilers
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Piano Teacher
mankillingshark — 11 years ago(January 05, 2015 03:15 PM)
So, at the end he fulfills the instructions of the letter she had given him. He keeps going, even though she protests, just like it said to do in the letter.
But her protests suddenly seem more genuine, and then she seems completely catatonic and traumatized when he rapes her.
My question is: did she realize that it wasn't what she wanted when it finally happened? Or was she happy with the way it all went down, and the way she was acting was just a part of it?
I don't get the finalization of the character arc, in the end. -
danmcn61-1 — 11 years ago(January 26, 2015 05:07 AM)
I think the intended point is that even though she has fantasies of being beaten, raped, etcby a man, when she is confronted with the actual violence it repels her and she hates herself even further. The only way she can deal with th emotions that she is feeling is to shut down and be catatonic, like a scared rabbit.
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jcarpenter-1 — 11 years ago(March 18, 2015 08:10 AM)
Let's face it, from an intimacy stand point Erika is a broken child. She lives with a Stage Mother who is abusive and sees her as a failure (them that can't do teach). She has probably never had sex with a man. She gets her mental images of sex from pornography, her note reads as such. That kind of S&M is fetish play, not reality. He miss interprets it and gives her the real thing and not what she really wanted, which was an intimate relationship and love. We finally see what a real mess she is in the film's most bizarre scene, when she comes on to her mother, a total failed Oedipus complex. She takes a knife to the concert to possibly kill Walter or herself. Walter passes her cheerfully and Anna greets her appearing much happier (pressure's off). It has been argued that Erika's effort to mutilate Anna could have been out of jealousy or was an effort to save her from the life she has. What does she do next? In the final manifestation of her pain she cuts herself and leaves.
I did think Isabelle Huppert was brilliant in this. -
PoppyTransfusion — 11 years ago(March 18, 2015 12:10 PM)
@jcarpenter-1
Great post and explanation, which fitted with my view of events. The Erika of the book differs to the Erika in the film; the latter struck me as a virgin too, or very inexperienced and using pornography
as though
this was sex between a man and woman.
In the final manifestation of her pain she cuts herself and leaves.
Yes.
I think La Pianiste is one of the finest character studies I've watched and portrays a toxic triangle very well.
A bird sings and the mountain's silence deepens. -
Keely — 10 years ago(July 11, 2015 06:27 AM)
She is essentially unresponsive and unable to surrender to any sexual feelings with another person. She can get off on porn or watching others, while she's alone, but the intimacy of sex and even getting what she considered were her desires and fantasies all leave her frigid. So it's not that she didn't want it, it's that she discovers it can never really satisfy her. She's dead inside and can't feel anything for others.
Whether she had had tried to have relationships like this before or whether this one was a first for her, to have achieved her fantasy of being beaten and subjugated and then find out that it does nothing for you would be devastating and horrifying. The knife in the chest is just the next step in her self mutilation, which seems to be one of the only things that gives her some kind of release.
The end of this movie is so similar to the end of Haneke's Cache a quiet, almost blank scene of a building with steps, and ordinary humans and/or traffic passing by.