6. The Piano Teacher (2001)
A repressed Piano Professor - Erika (Isabelle Huppert) who has a list of secret sexual perversions as long as her arm - including genital mutilation and voyeurism - falls in love with 17 year old student Walter. Begrudging the contact a talented young pianist called Anna has with Walter, she deliberately sets up a situation to mutilate the young girl's hand. After this, she enters into a bizarre relationship with Walter in which she attempts to get him involved in her fantasies. He finds them highly repellant. However when he rapes and beats her as she has requested, the reality does not match her fantasy. Prior to a concert, she stabs herself in the neck before she goes onstage. The wound isn't visible and it is likely further acts of self mutilation will occur. It is difficult to imagine any other actress than Huppert having the skill to play the complex Erika. She cannot experience love in a normal fashion and she has been so twisted by her domineering mother that she can give no proper expression for her emotions. Tantamount to the film is the idea of Austria as a breeding ground for fascist/Nazi/Authoritarian ideas which restrict individual freedom and self expression. This is a very interesting concept but as we are writing about kinkiness and not political subtexts, I won't go into it now. The Piano Teacher is a very kinky film, but it is hard to imagine the viewer being turned on by it. It is more twisted-kinky.