Tár is the Joker for all those who didn’t get to relate the to incel, cis white male, bruised ego aesthetic. We get to question our thoughts on separating the art from the artist, or as I saw a review, the tárt from the tártist. This film has a lot of ideas and detail poured into its two hour runtime, details I will never notice, because I watch movies like a 16 year old boy who likes when the speakers get loud and the colours go bright and hate then the [animal] dies.
We begin with the credits, in reverse, showing every single name in the production. This intro sets up a film about ego and power so perfectly as it takes the status away from those who usually sit at the top of the credits, taking all the glory for the film. We’re then shown Lydia Tár, speaking with a New Yorker journalist at a live panel. She talks herself up, using complex words to describe music, as if its a high art that nobody in the crowd could ever understand like she does. This theme persists throughout the film, she over describes, alienates and gatekeeps everything to do with music to feel her superiority from the general scum that walk the streets with Ariana Grande and Doja Cat blasting into their scummy ears. The story plays out over two and a half hours with quite a simplistic plot. Lydia is about to hit the pinnacle of her career, she has an EGOT, has played four bits(?) of Mahler’s tunes and is ready to play his fifth with the Berlin orchestra. After the interview, we see her in a grand theatre, angular and modern, practising with the group following auditions. She has an interesting way of choosing her newest cello player, hot lady walks into the bathroom with her high heeled shoes, then walks off the stage with the same shoes, Lydia is sold! It is impressive to keep a pair of shoes that long, I assume that would be why she chose her, and not for pervy reasons, surely not. This relationship with the Russian cello player develops throughout the film , playing with the power dynamic that Lydia is used to winning. She has been the holder of power in all her conquests previously, including Krista, who we find out has taken her own life after being black balled in the orchestra industry by Tár. Lydia assures us that she was crazy but as the film goes on and we see her interactions with the cello player, we start to flip sides and question her motives. All of a sudden, she is being sued by Krista’s family for the suicide and an edited video of her talking at a Juliard lecture gets posted online, begining the wave of cancel culture. Lydia fights against this, calling it “total fiction”. I found this line a bit exaggerated, as nobody in a position of power would deny abusing their position, ever. This cancellation leads to the humbling of Lydia Tár, rendering her to a life of passionless gigs as we watch her compose a small orchestra playing to a crowd of Monster Hunter fans at the end.
Within this story, we have a lot of questions and intricacies that give some deeper meaning to the surface level story shown to us. Lydia as a character is written like a male, she barges through life, untouchable in her own head, treating every relationship as transactional until she becomes the creditor with Krista, the guilt playing on her mind. Having Tár written like this is jarring, we expect a woman so successful to be ready to empower women and hold those who want to hold her back accountable, bringing up women who would have struggled like her. Instead, she dismisses it all and forgets where she comes from, changing everything about her upbringing, even her name.
Technically, this film is stunning, in both audio and visual. Each shot of this film is thought about more than I have ever thought about anything, maybe just as much as I’ve thought about Wall-E. Lydia is never centre frame, while she is the centre of her world, she is not aligned with the world she is in. The audio is specific, putting sounds all around us in the cinema, we hear sounds behind us, a loud knock to the right of screen that glides to the front of the screen as Tár goes to open the door, or a beeping that exists outside our understanding, floating from left to right and back again, indistinguishable until Tár opens her fridge, the sound snaps to the front, identified.
The finalé; I enjoyed this film a lot more after having time to think about it and listen to people smarter than me talk about it and explain why it was this good. Cate Blanchett was a very believable man in power in this film, throwing my bias into perspective. I appreciate this film more than I like it, I think the technical aspect and care of this film are astonishing but the feelings it left me with were minimal. I just want to feel something Lydia, make me cry or giggle once in a white.
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