Musical families are intense. In “God of the Piano,” Anat (Naama Preis), a pianist, is obsessed with living up to the standards her father, himself a virtuoso, demands. We see her hands at the keyboard, her face as she concentrates, and then her feet as her water breaks and a puddle forms.
The film, directed by Itay Tal, who also wrote and edited it, abounds in subtle fakeouts. Anat’s baby is born deaf, and so her ambition — conveyed without words by the incredible Preis — that her child reach the musical heights she never could — is stymied.
At the hospital she actually tries to swap her baby for one who can hear. We are not entirely sure if she succeeds.
A few years later, the son, Idan, is shown not only to be able to hear but also to be a prodigy. At a dinner he wows his extended family on the Steinway. Anat’s face shows quiet admiration that morphs into something deliberately unreadable.
This is a psychological horror film played mostly at pianissimo. Its quietness yields devastating results.
There’s a scene of Idan and his father playing video games, depicted in a single static shot. Idan leaves the room to practice at the keyboard. The music stops, and Anat makes a peculiar attempt at détente with her husband, who’s alienated from her without quite understanding why. It’s a chilling portrait of a nuclear family at its most toxic.
Anat’s determination leads her down further self-destructive roads. She arranges advantageous friendships and, in trying to persuade a famed pianist to be her child’s mentor, falls into a sexual liaison with him.
Tal’s style has a simultaneous simplicity and density that has an affinity with the works of Lucrecia Martel and Michael Haneke. Rarely does a debut feature showcase a talent so fully formed. This is a remarkably potent film.
God of the Piano
Not rated. In Hebrew, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas.
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