In The Piano Teacher, Michael Haneke interrogates the notion of good and evil through the ambiguous protagonist Erika Kohut. Haneke blurs the lines of her virtuous qualities or nefarious intentions, thereby introducing a unique female figure to film history. Three particular scenes demonstrate the depth of Erika's cryptic personality.
The Opening Scene
The opening scene in The Piano Teacher is excellent for understanding the mother/daughter bond between Erika and her mother. After Erika enters her house late at night, causing her mother to question where she was. The tension builds up when she grabs Erika’s purse to figure out where she went; when Erika's mother discovers that Erika bought a dress without her permission, she blames her for lying. They get into a vicious fight where Erika pulls her mother's hair. After the fight, the audience sees “Erika in tears, apologizing to her mother and checking her mother’s scalp to see if it is sore.”
According to the author John Champagne, since Erika pulls her mother’s hair first but eventually asks if she can forgive her at the end of the scene, “Erika’s mother appears to represent the (phallic) Lacanian pre-Oedipal mother, the mother who is both adored and feared by the child because of the child’s dependence on her and its closeness to her body.”2 The opening scene demonstrates how Erika is open to taking immoral actions and demonstrating (self-)destructive behavior.
Walter’s Love Confession Sequence
Walter’s love confession sequence is excellent for understanding Erika’s cruelty – which the audience caught glimpses of in the opening scene. This ten-minute-long sequence begins in an ongoing rehearsal at the Vienna Conservatory. While Erika watches, one of her pupils, Anna Schober, tells her that she has diarrhea due to stage fright. Erika motivates her to return to the stage and Walter also sits next to her to offer motivation. As Erika watches Anna and Walter’s conversation, she sees him making Anna laugh and behaving sympathetically.
Shortly after the rehearsal starts, Erika exits the hall and goes to the cloakroom. In order to demonstrate her interest in Walter, Erika breaks a glass and puts its shards on Anna’s coat’s right pocket. When the rehearsal ends, the viewers see Erika talking to Walter. Then, Erika and Walter suddenly hear Anna’s scream and realize that her right hand is bleeding due to the glass shards put on her coat’s right pocket. Erika claims that she cannot stand seeing blood and goes to the lavatory, and Walter then follows Erika. After Erika finishes her toilet and opens the toilet door, Walter and Erika start kissing passionately. Erika succeeds in grabbing Walter’s attention and makes him confess his love for her.
According to the author Harriet Kimble Wrye, “Erika’s act reverberates with [her] mother’s outburst at her in the opening scene of the film when [she] wails ‘I should cut your hands off, beating your own mother like that!’”3 Erika’s act also demonstrates her complex motivation but raises more questions about her personality in the viewers’ minds.
The Ending Sequence
Haneke subverts conventional male-centered film language to analyze female sexuality.
After Walter confesses his love for Erika, he realizes that Erika is not attracted to him in the same way and has more masochistic desires. Since Walter finds Erika’s desires perverted, he lets her know that he does not want to meet her again, but this makes Erika more attracted to him. Since Erika’s sexual attraction prevents Walter from establishing his power over Erika, he rapes and beats her to establish dominance.
The next day, Erika and her mother prepare for her live performance at the Vienna Conservatory. Knowing that Walter will be there, Erika puts a knife in her handbag. Erika encounters Walter before her performance but does not do anything to him. After everyone has entered the hall, Erika stabs the knife above her heart and pulls it out. In the film’s last frames, the viewers see Erika leaving the conservatory building.
According to the author Jean Ma, “the challenges that the rape scene poses for the understanding of the audience lie in its familiarity: what shocks is not only the sudden intrusion of violence into the realm of intimacy but also the uncanny echoing of Erika’s fantasies in Walter’s actions.” Erika’s masochistic desires become her nightmare and make her realize the impossibility of exploring her sexuality due to patriarchal codes. Her fantasies will always be subjugated. That is why it is not surprising to see Erika hurting herself instead of seeking revenge in The Piano Teacher’s last scene.
While viewers see Erika as an unpleasant character because of her aberrant desires, they view Walter as a sympathetic figure until the rape scene. Erika’s decision to hurt herself makes the viewers empathize with her for the first time. It is also the sole moment Erika highly resembles conventional anti-villains. The audience believes she has had good intentions but has done sinful acts due to the circumstances or environment. Erika does not have any heroic qualities beneficial for society; she is neither good nor evil, but morally ambiguous, making her an intriguing female protagonist.