Madame Sousatzka (1988)

A Deeply Creepy Film about Child Abuse

"Madame Sousatzka" is the story of Manek, a sixteen year old boy with a prodigious musical talent, and the three older women who try to use him in various ways for their own gratification.

First there is Mme Sousatzka herself, a grandmotherly Russian piano teacher with a failed concert career and a history of forming inappropriate relationships with her under-aged male students. Throughout the film, she is constantly primping and trying to make herself physically attractive to Manek. She also showers him with gifts of clothing, tries to control his relationships with other people (particularly women), and throws jealous tantrums when he doesn't pay enough attention to her.

Then there is Manek's mother, whose principal goal is to turn Manek into a well-paid concert performer so that she can live the life she thinks she deserves. The development of his talent is simply a means to an end for her. Like Mme Sousatzka, she also exhibits jealousy when Manek tries to form relationships with other people, and she uses the same kind of baby-doll seductiveness toward him that she displays toward her boyfriends.

Finally, there is Jenny, a pop-star wannabe approaching middle age, who recognizes in Manek's talent something that she will never achieve. Seeing that Manek has a crush on her, she decides to have sex with him -- primarily to drive away her own sense of failure.

Many reviewers see this film as some kind of "coming of age" saga. It's not. It's about three older women who violate a young boy's trust by having various kinds of inappropriate relationships with him, when they ought to know better. In the long run, this is going to cause Manek to devalue himself and have trouble forming normal relationships.

If you doubt this appraisal, just flip the characters' genders and see how the story sounds:

* "Monsieur Sousatzka" is an aging (male) piano teacher who has romantic designs on a sixteen year old girl student.

* The girl's father makes veiled sexual suggestions to the girl as a way of getting her to do what he wants.

* Sousatzka's upstairs neighbor is a middle-aged pop singer who sees that the girl has a crush on him, and seduces her to gratify his own ego.

Suddenly not such a "coming of age" story, is it? More like child abuse. Our culture doesn't tolerate this kind of thing when the perpetrators are men, but for the most part turns a blind eye when the perps are older women and the victims are male.

This is a creepy film. Even creepier because it ends with one of Mme Sousatzka's former boy students bringing a new young man to study with her. The cycle of abuse continues with a new victim...

December 10, 2008

Wonderful....

Although there is one rather foul word in the movie, for the most part, the movie is excellent. Great music, and a story that makes you think. April 12, 2008

A fine study of the psychopathology in classical music

This is a very fine portrayal of the bullying, exploitation, and lack of interpersonal boundaries that pervade the classical music industry. I give it four stars for its entertaining "true-to-lifeness"---even the boy's mother uses him incestuously. The only reason I didn't give it five is that Schlesinger himself exploits his adolescent star at times, probably unconsciously (as in the massage scene). Instead of growing up and/or getting the intensive psychotherapy they so desperately need, these people will continue to perpetuate their unhealthy dynamics transgenerationally. The proof is in the statements of the other reviewers: no one has spotted that this boy is constantly being abused. The proof is also in the characters themselves: the movie ends with Souzatska's former student walking a new junior to her studio. He will never wake up to the fact that the woman is disturbed...and actually rather evil. Instead, the cycle of mental damage will continue for decades, if not centuries. November 22, 2007

A pre-conceived tour-de-force for MacLaine

Derivative elements hinder story of an eccentric Russian piano teacher in a decaying neighborhood of London (a literary descendant of Jean Brodie and possibly Auntie Mame) who coaches a brilliant immigrant youngster from India in music and life. Modest drama, marked with false uplift and poor color, contains a multitude of sub-plots which never come together cohesively, serving little purpose other than to pad the slim central story. Shirley MacLaine has good moments as Yuvline Sousatzka, yet the character herself rings curiously hollow, despite MacLaine's obvious desire to make this woman both human and larger-than-life. Director John Schlesinger was probably too grim a filmmaker for such material; with the exception of a remarkable final shot of a neighborhood in transition, Schlesinger's touches are too heavy (he's hardly the filmmaker to find whimsy in any scenario). The screenplay is made up of musty literary mechanisms, though young Navin Chowdhry nearly makes the set-up plausible. October 28, 2007

The clash of two wills

A piano teacher lives into a glittering environment, plenty of expensive jewels in order to cultivate and inspire constantly the spirit, but the fate has prepared her a striking surprise when she looks her dark side in the mirror of the reality, personified by a teenager (15) who was born with an inner passion.

Interesting existential dialectics between what's real and what's untrue in this formidable clash of trains among two characters, the ostentation of experience against the rebelliousness of youth around th music and its intrinsic values.

A bold film brilliantly acted and best directed.
August 7, 2007

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