Piano professor takes out her masochistic urges on student. Criterion Collection Year 2001 Video Release 2017 09 26 Studio Kino Lorber Genre Drama MPAA Rating R CARA aberrant sexuality including violence, and for language Color Color Runtime 135 Animated Live Action Full Synopsis Academy Award winning Austrian director Michael Haneke shifted his focus from the social to the psychological for this riveting study of female sexuality and the dynamics of control, an adaptation of a controversial 1983 novel by Elfriede Jelinek. Haneke finds his match in Isabelle Huppert, who delivers an icy but quietly seething performance as Erika, a middle aged piano professor at a Viennese conservatory who lives with her mother, in a claustrophobically codependent relationship. Severely repressed, she satisfies her masochistic urges only voyeuristically until she meets Walter Benoit Magimel , a young student whose desire for Erika leads to a destructive infatuation that upsets the careful equilibrium of her life. A critical breakthrough for Haneke, The Piano Teacher which won the Grand Prix as well as dual acting awards for its stars at Cannes is a formalist masterwork that remains a shocking sensation. Director Michael Haneke Cast Michael Haneke; Isabelle Huppert; Annie Girardot; Benoit Magimel; Susanne Lothar; Udo Samel; Anna Schober; Gerda Blonski