A One Mann’s Movies review of “Tár” (2023).
With Cate Blanchett having already won the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards for Best Actress, there’s no doubt that her performance in Tár is odds-on favourite to pick up both the BAFTA and the Oscar. But Todd Field’s movie goes well beyond just this one performance, and is a fascinating piece of work in its own right.
Bob the Movie Man Rating(s):
Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) is the lead conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the first woman to ever have held that position. Not only is she brilliant… she is pompous, irascible and manipulates her female subordinates to fulfill her own sexual desires. All of this is happening under the noses of her wife Sharon (Nina Hoss) and their young daughter Petra (Mila Bogojevic).
But when an affair of the past comes back to haunt her, the Maestro’s world begins to distintegrate around her, and with it her mental health.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC: “Sexually abusive behaviour”.)
Talent:
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, Mark Strong, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover.
Directed by: Todd Field.
Written by: Todd Field.
Twitter Handles: #tarmovie.
The multi-talented Sophie Kauer as Olga. (Source: Focus Features).
“Tár” Review:
Positives:
- It goes without saying that this is a monumental performance from Cate Blanchett. Passionate; manic; half-crazed, it’s the “performance of a lifetime” (as the poster correctly shouts). This is over and above – for me – her Oscar-winning performances for “Blue Jasmine” (Best Actress) and for “The Aviator” (Best Supporting Actress). (Note: Even though it’s a truly great performance, my vote would STILL go with Danielle Deadwyler for “Till“…. just because that performance emotionally moved me far more than this one).
- Todd Field’s script is deep and complex.
- The realisation of Lydia Tár is so vivid that I actually had to Google whether she was a real person (with this movie being a biopic). (She’s not, and this is indeed a well-crafted work of fiction).
- There are genuinely thought-provoking scenes in here covering cancel culture and ‘Me Too’ issues.
- Lydia’s rant about young people’s desire to cancel everything (up to and including Bach!) is magical stuff: this includes accusing Jerry Goldsmith of plagerising Edgard Varèse, an “anti-semetic composer”, for the soundtrack of “The Planet of the Apes”! The poor boy at the receiving end of this is young student Max (Zethphan D. Smith-Gneist), whose leg twitching tic is almost UNBEARABLE to watch on the big screen!
- The ‘Me Too’ aspects are striking. I realised that this is not necessarily a cross-gender thing: here is a woman who is using her power and influence to procure sex from younger woman. I was pondering what this movie would have felt like if the protagonist had been a Harvey Weinstein-style male predator. And I came to the conclusion that the movie would have been so unpalatable that it probably would have been unmarketable! It shouldn’t make a difference to me what the sex of the aggressor was. But somehow it did.
- There’s also many aspects of the story that I am still pondering on. What is real? What is imagined and a part of Lydia’s fracturing mind? Todd Field keeps a LOT of stuff spookily vague:
- The strange patterns that Lydia keeps seeing?
- The dark underground world of Olga’s basement and that pitter-patter of animal feet?
- The screaming in the woods?
- The book she is sent and trashes angrily in the airplane bin? (With thanks to slate.com, this is Vita Sackville-West’s “Challenge” — a book inspired by Sackville-West’s love affair with a woman who threatened suicide after their separation).
- Why does she unnecessarily lie about things? Her “attack” for example? It’s a lovely moment when her brother refers to her as “Linda” and you realise she’s pretentiously adopted a fancier name for her working life. It left me with the impression that the woman has been lying – both to herself and to others – for most of her life.
- The “No 5” in the Thai ‘fishbowl’: why did she vomit, and was this before or after any ‘act’ was performed?
- Sooo many questions… so few answers!
- Although overshadowed by Blanchett, the supporting cast do a great job. In particular, Noémie Merlant is fabulous as Tár’s PA Francesca. And real-life-cellist Sophie Kauer, amazingly in her first acting role, is mesmeric as the brilliant Russian cellist and elusive Tár-target Olga Metkina. Mark Strong was almost unrecognisable to me with a dodgy hairstyle! And it was great to see Julian Glover, still hard at work in his late 80’s, on the big screen.
- Technically, there’s a lot to like about the film. In particular, the sound design is Oscar-worthy (Stephen Griffiths and Andy Shelley). There are moments of dramatic ear-splitting bursts of sound (the Mahler sounds magnificent through the cinema sound system) but also moments of exquisite quiet: for example, when Lydia is compulsively searching out tiny noises in her flat. For a film that is so focused on ‘listening’, an Oscar win for Sound feels very appropriate. (Well, possibly. The “The Sound of Metal” won in 2021 but “A Quiet Place” lost out in 2019, losing out to “Bohemian Rhapsody“!)
Negatives:
- This will be a divisive film. Many will, I’m sure, find it slow, boring and pretentious. At two and three-quarter hours, it’s certainly another bladder-testing awards-movie (something I failed at – – not messily, you understand, but I missed a couple of minutes!). The first half of the film, in particular, is turgidly slow. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of great moments in that first half (including the above mentioned “cancel culture” student scene). And it builds character and mood. But it’s paced really slowly and at times my mind was drifting.
- The pace of the film is not helped by the showing of almost the entire end credits (white on black) at the start of the film. This is no way to warm an audience to you Mr Field! Now I commended the John Michael McDonagh thriller “The Forgiven” for doing the same thing last year. But it did it to much better effect. The opening titles were quickly flashed through, and then the ending went from a dramatic moment to “The End” then <Lights Up>…. a venerable cinematic WTF moment!
Summary Thoughts on “Tár”
I found Tár to be a really interesting film and one whose aspects I am still pondering on days after watching it. But it’s also a long and slow film that I think many, particularly those watching at home with a clicker in their hand, will lose patience with. This has been bourne out by the box office, which (at the time of writing) is a measily $6M worldwide on a budget of $35M. How sad, for such a well-crafted and thoughtful piece.
Perhaps Sam Mendes was right when he recently commented that the “great era” of cinema is dying. I certainly hope not.
Trailer for “Tár”:
The trailer is here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Na6gA1RehsU .
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