Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This film tells the story of a female piano teacher who has perverse fantasies towards her young student.The piano teacher seems like an ordinary woman, until her dark side is introduced. It is provocative and at times even disturbing. The scene in the video club is quite a shock to me. Then, the story builds on and goes even further. Yet, the ending is a great surprise. It is a provocative, disturbing and engaging film.

I have to confess I am a little wary of female authors, they can be often earthy and go way overboard with sexual things. But even I was unprepared for this poster child proving me right.I started watching the movie and thought well this might be interesting if a bit stuffy and pseudo intellectually arty. About that time Erika goes into a porno shop stall for dirty movies and takes soiled tissue out of the garbage can to smell it. Then she goes home and uses a razor on her genitals. At this point I pulled the plug on this thing.I am sorry---life is too short--I don't need these horrible images troubling my subconscious mind.How perfect the author won a Nobel prize. Nobel prizes for literature and peace are purely politically correct left wing absurdities.Totally toxic do not watch rent or anything but flee from this movie.The reviews for this film fall into 3 categories. The pompous pseudo intellectuals who write paragraphs praising it...the tough nothing bothers me people who say it was just boring...and the honest people who are simply disgusted by it.

This movie is an evil vortex sucking everything positive out of life as we know it. It leaves you feeling offended, disturbed and utterly disappointed. I was appalled at how many awards it has actually won. It directly indicates that critics and the public accept and applaud child abuse, sadomasochism, incest, the bludgeoning of women and then raping them, jealousy turning into assault, pornography, slavery & elitism. The slogan of this movie should be: "Love = Rape". The marketing department fell off the bus when they took the motto "Sex Sells" and turned it into "Rape Sells". Don't allow this movie to severely distort your view of what love should be between a man and a woman. How can one trust critics and their ratings on any other movie if filth like this is praised so much!? Real life is already teeming with so much evil, stealing our joy. Upon watching this drivel you are giving evil permission to once again, pilfer what little joy you have left, and slapping you in the face with it. Why would anyone in their right mind want to waste more than 2 hours of their time just to feel bereft of any positivity?

This movie was a pretty intense experience for me. It begins with a look at the life of Erika Kohut, a respected music professor, who lives with her controlling mother. She is pursued by another talented young man named Walter Klemmer, and they soon enter into a Dominant/Submissive relationship. Erika is very sexually repressed and unhappy, mainly thanks to her mother, who keeps check on her like one would on a baby.In many ways this movie reminds me of The Black Swan.Her relationship with Walter, who is not so normal himself, soon deteriorates and and the movie ends with Erika cutting herself, probably with more self harm to come. I only wish the movie had been longer and had let us learn more about Erika, especially concerning her relationship with her father, who lives in a lunatic asylum.