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seiskinkWarnings: Violence, rape, low quality graphics
“The Piano Teacher” features a professor Erika Kohut’s attempt to regain control of her life while living under her overbearing mother’s thumb through establishing a master/slave relationship with Walter Klemmer, her young suitor. After hearing responses of fascinated disgust from friends who have watched this film for their “Madness In Literature” module, I decided to watch it for myself out of a passion for dissecting perversion. The central psychological mystery of the film is the root of the titular piano teacher’s madness and while it may seem that the answer is evident in the sexualized acts the protagonist performs for her self-pleasure, I believe that the film’s progression of perversion is more than a shock tactic and instead serves to problematize the protagonist’s unnatural innocence.
The twist of the movie has its basis on the idea in pop culture of the sexually deviant artist, as epitomized in the figure of the bohemian. The audience is thus led to assume that Kohut’s sexual maturity is commensurate with her artistic maturity. However, I think that the music is a red herring, that it functions not so much a clue to her madness as the sole defining feature of her adult identity. The juxtaposition between Kohut’s domineering professional personae and her identity as a disempowered daughter at home seems to allude to the common usage of intense sex in texts dealing with sadomasochism as a means of escapism for the bourgeois.
However, the film begins to deconstruct the audience’s common assumptions of the masochistic pervert in the climax in which Klemmer rapes Kohut. Here, Kohut experiences the gap between the fantasy and reality of a master/slave relationship as the fulfillment of her desire for physically violent sex fulfilled is undermined by the sexual abuse she receives. 
In my opinion, Kohut’s sexual immaturity is evident in this scene. Her absolute stillness and Klemmer’s comment on her unresponsiveness during the sex scene strongly suggests that she’s most likely a virgin and is being fucked dry. If we refer to previous events in the film, it remains ambiguous whether Kohut has ever experienced orgasm before. She is not shown masturbating even when watching porn and expresses sexual arousal via the cutting of her nether regions and urination. The depictions of her performing these ‘perverted’ acts thus ironically serve to reinforce her ignorance regarding sexuality, thereby disproving the assumption that only the sexually informed are capable of such acts.
Cinematic storytelling is used to illustrate Kohut’s maturation in her disillusionment as the lead actress is made to look even more old and haggard in this scene.
Her fantasy to be empowered in her submission through being able to direct exactly how she will be hurt is effectively broken down with the violation of her body. Despite Klemmer’s claims that he is only behaving according to the instructions she had given him earlier in the film to beat her relentlessly, it is clear that Kohut holds no more power in this relationship as Klemmer forces himself on her to satiate his angry lust. As Kohut realizes that there is no way for her to control Klemmer’s emotions and actions, all hope for her to control her life is gone.
Earlier in the film, as Kohut begs Klemmer to love her back, she tries to convince him of her underlying purity: 
"I'm all clean. Like a baby. Inside as well as outside."--Erika Kohut
While this seems like a statement of self-denial, I believe it is ironically accurate with respect to how unquestioningly trusting and naive she is in appointing Klemmer as her dominator without considering the possibility of him abusing the power he has over her. Again, cinematic storytelling is employed to associate this ‘pervert’ with purity in the subsequent shot of Kohut blending in with the snowy landscape.
Kohut’s attempt at a master/slave relationship could be interpreted as her decisive foray into adulthood and with the breakdown of her fantasy, it seems that she will be permanently trapped in the role of a child under the thumb of her domineering mother. Her final artistic achievement in the film is being assigned to play in the school concert and she is deliberately set apart from the other adult women as they compare tickets. 
Kohut’s irrational stab to the heart can thus be interpreted as either a child-like and ineffective way to commit suicide, or literal last stab at externalizing her inner pain as she attempted to do via her simplified notion of a master/slave relationship. The film ends with her fleeing the concert hall and abandoning her professional obligations, thereby effectively severing her last tie to the adult world and giving the audience little hope for her future emotional growth.
Therefore, what “The Piano Teacher” condemns is not inclinations towards engaging in powerplay but the romanticization of doing so for self-therapy. The inclusion of the controversial scenes plays with our superficial presumptions of what constitutes a pervert’s behaviour and serve to underscore danger of practicing sadomasochism in an uncontrolled environment.
