‘Mademoiselle’ and ‘The Piano Teacher’: when sexual repression turns tragic

Posted On April 3, 2025April 3, 2025

The Piano Teacher, directed by Michael Haneke, is not an easy watch. In fact, it’s one that might make you recoil in horror – the scene in which protagonist Erika tries to grope her own mother instantly comes to mind. Put simply, the film is one you’ll never forget, with its harrowing scenes of abuse from Walter to the tragic lengths Erika will go to for sexual gratification, such as mutilating her genitals or sniffing strangers’ used tissues.

Everything about Erika’s life is utterly bleak, and it makes for an equally depressing film, one that is considered a quintessential entry into the unofficial unhinged woman canon, standing alongside the likes of Isabelle Adjani in Possession or Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Or how about Jeanne Moreau in the less-talked about yet sizzling psychological drama Mademoiselle?

The 1966 film, directed by Tony Richardson, is perfect for a rather transgressive double bill with 2001’s The Piano Teacher. Both movies reveal the dangers of sexual repression – as a result of societal taboos regarding female sexuality – with the female protagonists resorting to decidedly unusual ways to satisfy their most primal urges. For Moreau’s unnamed Mademoiselle and Isabelle Huppert’s Erika, sex has to be dangerous to be exciting. In Erika’s case, it’s her oppressive relationship with her domineering mother that spurs her to act so intensely—committing small acts of pleasure in private, like spying on couples or hurting herself in the bathroom.

When it comes down to Mademoiselle, who secretly sets fires or causes floods in her quiet village so that she can watch the object of her desire, Manou, attempt to save the day, it seems as though she revels in teasing and sadistic humiliation, watching from a distance and knowing that no-one will suspect her as the perpetrator. She doesn’t care that the villagers believe that Manou, an Italian logger temporarily staying in the village, is responsible, simply satisfying her own wants and needs.

For both women, the desire to find erotic pleasure is firmly rooted in their sexual repression. Neither are satisfied with the lack of sex in their lives, but instead of pursuing it in a normal way, these negative feelings of being dissatisfied and unfulfilled become irreversibly intertwined with the erotic, resulting in Mademoiselle’s sadistic actions and Erika’s desire to be controlled by her piano student Walter.

Moreau and Huppert give incredible performances in their respective films, both appearing cold and icy, clearly hiding a rich inner world full of unhappiness and instability. Evidently, if these films teach us anything, it’s that real tragedy can strike from sexual repression, a murky world where desires turn into desperation and erotic confusion, harming the individuals experiencing these feelings and the people around them. The Piano Teacher and Mademoiselle both end with violence, and in the case of the latter, death.

Interestingly, Mademoiselle, which features the murder of Manou as a direct result of the protagonist’s actions, sees Moreau’s character walk away unscathed, getting to enjoy a night of passionate sex with him beforehand. She knows the truth, but she gets away with it because she is aware that her standing as a well-respected member of the community gives her a better alibi than the Italian loggers, who experience considerable xenophobia in the village. She might have got what she wanted, but the results are disastrous—Manou dies, the animals die, and the village is swept into undoable chaos. Mademoiselle leaves a trail of fire behind her, scorching the earth with her selfish and urgent desires, which she greedily satisfies. For Erika in The Piano Teacher, the affair she embarks on with Walter quickly crashes down around her when she realises that the intense desires she asks him to indulge in are not what she truly wants. Her fantasy is shattered and she is soon subjected to his heinous behaviour, which includes rape and battery. She is broken by him, becoming a fragmented mess of desires that turned out to be far from what she wanted. 

The Piano Teacher is so tragic because when Erika gets what she thinks she wants, it couldn’t be more awful for her. She becomes obsessive and a shell of her former self, resulting in her stabbing herself in the shoulder with a kitchen knife, her face stoic as she suffers through the pain she is now inflicting on herself, back to her old ways of masochism. This time, it’s hardly erotic, it’s punishment, hopelessness, and despair – a way of resuming control over herself again, taking it away from Walter.

So, while Mademoiselle feels no remorse for her actions – who knows if she’ll strike again? – Erika’s whole world is shaken, although it’s likely that she’ll resort to her old ways of self-harming from here on out. These stories are difficult ones, but they highlight the complexity of the human experience of sexuality, especially the female experience of navigating an erotic landscape where women’s bodies are so often taken advantage of and female desire is shamed and taught as dirty and taboo. Tragedy subsequently emerges, warning us of a landscape where sex is caught up in shame and secrecy – it never ends well.

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