Academy Award winning Austrian director Michael Haneke shifted his focus from the social to the psychological for this riveting study of female sexuality and the dynamics of control, an adaptation of a controversial 1983 novel by Elfriede Jelinek. Haneke finds his match in Isabelle Huppert, who delivers an icy but quietly seething performance as Erika, a middle-aged piano professor at a Viennese conservatory who lives with her mother, in a claustrophobically codependent relationship. Severely repressed, she satisfies her masochistic urges only voyeuristically until she meets Walter (Benoît Magimel), a young student whose desire for Erika leads to a destructive infatuation that upsets the careful equilibrium of her life. A critical breakthrough for Haneke, The Piano Teacher which won the Grand Prix as well as dual acting awards for its stars at Cannes is a formalist masterwork that remains a shocking sensation.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED TWO-DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

- New, restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director Michael Haneke

- New interview with Haneke

- New interview with actor Isabelle Huppert

- Selected-scene commentary from 2002 featuring Huppert

- Behind-the-scenes footage of a postsync session for the film featuring Haneke and Huppert

- Trailer

- New English subtitle translation

- PLUS: An essay by scholar Moira Weigel