The Piano Teacher

Erika Kohut is a piano professor at the Vienna Music Conservatory who resides in an apartment with her domineering elderly mother. Her late father had been a longstanding resident in a psychiatric asylum. Despite Erika's aloof and assured façade, she is a woman whose sexual repression and loneliness are manifested in her paraphilia, including voyeurism, sadomasochism, and self-harm.

At a recital hosted by the Blonskij couple, Erika meets Walter Klemmer, a young aspiring engineer who also plays piano, and who expresses admiration of her talent for classical music. The two share an appreciation for composers Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert, and he attempts to apply to the conservatory to be her pupil. His audition impresses the other professors, but Erika, though visibly moved by his playing, votes against him; she cites his divergent interpretation of the Andantino from Schubert's Sonata in A major, D. 959, and questions his motivations. Despite this, Walter is admitted as Erika's pupil. Meanwhile, another pupil, Anna Schober, struggles with anxiety while pushed by her own ambitious mother. When Erika witnesses Anna and Walter socialising, she slips to an empty coatroom and smashes a glass, hiding the shards inside one of Anna's coat pockets. This cuts Anna's right hand, preventing her from playing at the forthcoming jubilee concert. Erika claims she feels ill at the sight of blood and runs to the bathroom.

Walter follows Erika, climbs up and over her stall door, and unlocks it. He passionately kisses her and she responds by repeatedly humiliating and frustrating him. She proceeds to give him a handjob before performing fellatio on him, but abruptly stops when he does not abide by her orders to be silent and to look at her and not to touch her. She tells him she will write him a letter outlining her sexual rulebook for their next meeting. Later at the conservatory, Erika feigns sympathy for Anna's mother, who is distraught over her daughter’s injury. Anna’s mother asks who will fill in for her daughter at the forthcoming concert and Erika replies that she herself will play, as no student would play adequately on such short notice.

Walter is increasingly insistent in his desire to initiate a sexual relationship with Erika, but Erika is only willing if he will satisfy her masochistic fantasies. She gives him the letter indicating acts she will consent to. He follows her home and tries to seduce her but she is resistant. She allows him to come inside, where the pair is greeted by Erika’s disgruntled mother. In Erika’s bedroom, Walter attempts to seduce her once more but she insists that he read the letter. He reads the letter aloud, pausing to ask her questions or to get angry with her, while she remains silent. Erika retrieves a box of BDSM paraphernalia from under her bed and takes some of the items out. She asks Walter to think about her request. Walter tells her that she’s sick and he leaves. Later that night, while they lie in bed together, Erika's mother is berating her for letting Walter into her bedroom in the middle of the night. Erika suddenly begins kissing and groping her mother. Her mother resists and tells Erika she is unwell.

Erika finds Walter at an ice rink after his ice hockey practice to apologise. She begins to subjugate herself to him in a janitorial closet. Walter says he loves her and they begin to have sex, but Erika is unable to, and vomits while performing fellatio. Later that night, Walter arrives at Erika's apartment and attacks her in the fashion described in her letter. He locks her mother away in her bedroom before proceeding to beat and rape Erika, despite her pleas for him to stop.

The next day, Erika brings a large kitchen knife to the concert where she is scheduled to substitute for Anna. When Walter arrives, he enters cheerfully, laughing with his family, and flippantly greets her. Moments before the concert is due to start, Erika calmly stabs herself in the shoulder with the kitchen knife and exits the concert hall into the street.