Tár is a tricky film to assess. Its ostensible loftiness makes it very easy to dismiss as highfalutin. We are asked to follow an unpleasant, manipulative protagonist, Lydia Tár, a famous philharmonic conductor and brilliant thinker. Her dramatic arc leaves a trail of devastation akin to an emotional and physical tsunami. Lydia is both, the wave and the stranded survivor.
The film is off to a rocky start. It opens with an enigmatic phone text message about our heroine’s conscience followed by a torturously bland credit sequence. It lasts five interminable minutes. Next, Writer-Director Todd Field treats us to an equally blandly staged interview – 12 minutes of talking-head exposition. We learn about Lydia from Lydia talking about herself and her art, which happens to be an exceptional way of interpreting classical music. Granted, the conversation, moderated by Adam Gopnik (playing himself) becomes progressively intriguing. By the end of the chat, I was feeling that Field was testing my endurance. I’m happy to report that from then on, things pick up rather briskly and don’t let go until the quirky finale.
Tár runs 2 hours and 38 minutes, yet you don’t feel it once you pass the ponderous opening. The rewards are aplenty. Cate Blanchett plays Lydia Tár as a superior being – superior in every regard. She’s an intellectual powerhouse, accomplished beyond imagination, and sexually and professionally predatory. That last characteristic, no doubt, is a major factor in her success. But there is a great risk involved for the viewer – if you mistake the character of Lydia Tár for the spirit of the film itself, you might simply despise it.
Blanchett is an actor of tremendous range. Like with Brando, there seems to be no limit to her talent. Here, she doesn’t flinch at being flamboyantly unpleasant. Yet, like with Brando, you can always catch Blanchett acting. The technique becomes the character – there is always that thin layer of artifice involved in Blanchet’s performances. In Tár, it works splendidly because Lydia is a construct of her own making. She cannot not act. It is all a pose designed and perfected to take on the world. In many ways, Field’s film is about that façade we put up to fulfil our idealised perception of ourselves. And how effectively we project that image onto others becomes the measure of our success.
Lydia’s personality is a direct result of her vision of a woman succeeding in a man’s world of classical music. Talent and inventiveness are one thing, but without treachery it’s hard to reach the top. The plot thickens with sexual politics, cancel culture, and the ethical price of glory – but Field navigates these issues bravely and with unexpected frankness. He builds Lydia’s house of cards from subtle to broader strokes, and leaves just enough space for unresolved mysteries.
The supporting cast around Blanchett is uniformly spectacular. Nina Hoss as the long-suffering domestic partner registers her pain with beautiful nuance. Noémie Merlant, as Lydia’s right-hand woman, suffers great indignity – but the Portrait of a Lady on Fire star does pent-up emotion better than anyone. Other stand-outs include a wonderfully bewigged Mark Strong and a lovingly submissive Julian Glover. As a Julliard student of Lydia’s, newcomer Zethphan Smith-Gneist proves a formidable, albeit unwilling, foil to the heroine.
What helps to navigate through Tár’s slippery territory is its rich visual texture. Interiors and exteriors are as varied as the emotional states they support, or, in some ways, enforce. German cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister gives the image a glossy look, but with cracks peeking just below the surface – much like the persona of Lydia’s own forging.
The film’s structure, in retrospect, felt like going to the philharmonic. The slow beginning was just the orchestra tuning up. I would hesitate to call Tár a cinematic symphony, as it doesn’t quite have the required emotional sweep. But, in the end, it is a very thoughtful modernist sonata: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation – all delivered with tremendous precision. Given Field’s musical background, it makes sense that he exercised the option not to provide a catharsis-laden coda. Tár ends with a great punchline, but not a fully satisfying resolution. But, perhaps, so does life.
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