If you want to know how messed up people can get - not why but mostly the end result - this is a film for you. Otherwise, stand clear, for this is just a portrait of a really, really sick person that will leave a hole in your soul. Yes, we see how controlling the piano teacher's mother can be and so get some inkling of the roots of her depravity, but we know nothing of the teacher's history. So it's not a study of how someone becomes sado-masochistic which might have made this a more interesting psychological study.
How depraved can human beings get and do we really care? Movies with psychopaths or psychotics as main characters (unless they're really about those who respond to the madness) boil down to portraits of chaos and human depravity which is ubiquitous in our universe. Who needs 'art' to portray it? I'd rather watch a film that makes the audience think about something of value, even if it takes place on the wrong side of an ethical dilemma. La Pianiste isn't art nor entertainment but perverse voyeurism.
How depraved can human beings get and do we really care? Movies with psychopaths or psychotics as main characters (unless they're really about those who respond to the madness) boil down to portraits of chaos and human depravity which is ubiquitous in our universe. Who needs 'art' to portray it? I'd rather watch a film that makes the audience think about something of value, even if it takes place on the wrong side of an ethical dilemma. La Pianiste isn't art nor entertainment but perverse voyeurism.