Erika Kohut is a piano teacher at the Vienna Conservatory, living in emotional confinement with her domineering mother. Now in her forties, Erika finds release only in secret visits to adult cinemas and peepshows. But when a student attempts to seduce her, the rigid walls she has built around herself begin to crumble, unleashing a torrent of repressed and dangerous desire. Isabelle Huppert delivers a steely, unforgettable performance in Michael Haneke’s provocative psychological drama. Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, it remains a disturbing and powerful work nearly 25 years after its release.

Reviews

‘The film still holds the same fraught charge it did a quarter of a century ago.’
★★★★★
Danny Leigh, Time Out

‘This is a film, European arthouse to its core, that seemed to look back at Hollywood’s “erotic thriller” boom — Basic Instinct, Body of Evidence, Eyes Wide Shut — and say: “Pah, that’s nothing.”’
★★★★★
Kevin Maher, The Times