La Leçon

At first, there's nothing very natural about the situation. A teacher welcomes his young pupil for private lessons. She learns what she's taught. The teacher is obsequious and his pupil mischievous: it's the order of things. Frustrated by his pupil's shortcomings, the teacher becomes increasingly demanding. From gallant presentations, we move on to arithmetic, linguistics and hypnosis. The lesson turns into an object lesson. Gradually, the stultified pupil becomes a woman-object, and the mechanics continue to accelerate.
A parody of repetitive learning, this Lesson under tension is also a satire of all relationships of authority. Far from being the instrument of knowledge, language reveals itself to be the alibi of an absurd and perverse power, of an impulsive gear that turns empty, watching for its next prey.