Four Minutes

Four Minutes (German: Vier Minuten), is a 2006 German existentialist drama film directed by Chris Kraus starring Hannah Herzsprung, as a disturbed piano-playing genius imprisoned for murder and Monica Bleibtreu, as her 80-year-old piano teacher, with Richy Müller and Sven Pippig as prison wards.

When she tells her she can't take any lessons because her hands are too rough and she is uncooperative, Jenny becomes enraged and almost kills the prison guard, Mütze (Pippig), also one of Krueger's students.

Krueger listens from the hallway and, impressed by her talent, later offers Jenny lessons, but requires absolute obedience, including eating a sheet of paper.

Jenny's adoptive father wanted to turn her into a Mozart-like child prodigy when she was young, but when she resisted going to further contests, he raped her.

Krueger tells her about her own past, how she lost her great love, another woman, during the second world war, because she was a communist, and how she also taught her to play the piano.

Krueger convinces Jenny to play at the competition, where, because the police have come to take her back to prison, she has only four minutes to win the support of the crowd.

The Hollywood Reporter noted Bleibtreu's and Herzsprung's "polished performances, but their characters never change and their efforts end up feeling monotone and exhausting".