The Page Turner (DVD)

The young Mélanie Prouvost is a girl who takes her piano playing very seriously and has high ambitions for the future. During an examination recital, however, her concentration is disturbed when Ariane Fouchécourt, a famous concert pianist and head of the panel of examiners, allows an admirer to enter the room to request an autograph. Mélanie cannot regain her composure and is devastated; although her father, a butcher, is willing to continue paying for piano tuition, Mélanie locks the lid of the piano for good. She does not, however, forget that Ariane Fouchécourt ruined her hopes of a career as a pianist. We next see Mélanie ten years later as a young woman ...  Read the complete review

If you like dark, unsettling movies, well-crafted and that leave you thinking, then this is a truly great one. A french film similar in a way to 'Un Coeur en Hiver', in that it is suggested to be about homosexual love. However, in no way explicitly. The french seem adept at conveying a refined atmosphere of restraint, magnified by an approximation to classical music (of which both films are about). Here we have the piano, and the role of a 'page turner', at concerts. All sorts of themes open up to this, about the trust that this requires, the dependence, the power of anyone over anyone .... And this is a much darker and ...  Read the complete review

A thriller about a girl who turns the pages for a piano player? I can just see it now. Will she not turn a page fast enough so they end up out of time? Will the pianist stumble and miss a note? Edge of your seat stuff. I'm being foolish, of course. The 'thrill' aspect derives from the revenge tactics of the page turner herself, and the dependent relationship she forges with the pianist. Melanie, you see, has a bit of a grudge. During her childhood piano exam she was put off by one of the examiners and subsequently failed. Many years later she just happens to be working for the very same examiner. Uh-oh. Though really, holding that kind of grudge for something ...  Read the complete review

Quite a spooky and disturbing French thriller. A young girl's incredibly important music audition is ruined because of one of the judges is not being completely focused. Years later, the girl is back and is ready to get even. She finds that she is now a pianist and slowly works her way up as the page turner, attacking her subltly by turning everything and everyone against her. The use of cold, white, eerie imagery is noticeable throughout and this helps build plenty of tension. This exploits the pianist's very publically displayed career, as well her much more concealed, intimate sexuality. What the girl manages to pull of in the end is impressive - something that can ...  Read the complete review