Michael Haneke (Austria/France)
The Piano Teacher, which took three awards at Cannes earlier this year, is a shocker, even coming from Austrian director Michael Haneke, who has pushed the edge in stories of torment and abuse before. The film begins by depicting the angry relationship between a middle-aged piano teacher, Erika (Isabelle Huppert) and her cruel demanding elderly mother. Based on the controversial novel by Elfriede Jelinek (which saw Austria's musical heritage as a form of psychosexual madness), Haneke's work may strike some as simply ludicrous. But he does discover a quality here that's been in doubt in several of his films, which is sympathy. Erika, when not abusing her students, indulges in a secret sex life that ranges from peeking in cars at drive-ins to watching sado-masochistic porn and self-mutilation. When she meets a handsome young student Walter (Benoit Magimel) who wants to sleep with her, it unleashes the full extent of her twisted ardour. Huppert's performance is remarkable - icy, focused and, at the same time, pathetic; the sense that she carries not only her own troubled past, but an entire history of feminine repression and self-hatred is the film's most forceful statement. - L.L.

(Mon. Sept. 10, 3:15 p.m., Uptown; Fri. Sept. 14, 2 p.m., Varsity)