Perhaps the most challenging of contemporary European filmmakers, the Austrian director Michael Haneke provides a devastating portrait of the terrible consequences of repression and an excessive devotion to tradition. The central figure is a teacher at the Vienna Conservatory who lives a hermetic, love-hate relationship with a tyrannical mother. Educated to be an artist in an atmosphere of the strictest discipline, she can only derive pleasure from suffering and punishment, even in her sex life.
Austria-France, 2001. English subtitles. Colour. Dolby digital stereo. 130 mins.