See, I was in a frenzy when the first reviews for Tár came out. Cate Blanchett at her career best? Cate Blanchett for another Oscar? Cate Blanchett winning Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for the second time (becoming the fourth woman in history to do so)? Todd Field’s first film in 16 years? CATE BLANCHETT PLAYING A U-HAUL LESBIAN?
Hi, where can I sign up to give my life for Lydia Tár?
And then I actually saw the film (with my other gay friends because who isn’t gay for Cate Blanchett and classical music?), and I have many thoughts.
First and foremost (because I just need to get this out of the way):
Cate Blanchett deserves all of the praise that is getting heaped on her and although it is arbitrary to give awards for art she one hundred percent deserves all the awards in the world for her portrayal.
Nina Hoss is also amazing in this film. The one scene when she’s sitting Lydia down and telling her that she is to ask for her “fucking counsel”? I was shocked. Shook. A tiny bit in love. Don’t even get me started on the other women in this film. I was honestly a little in love with all of them before the end of the film, and I don’t think it’s because I am particularly susceptible to all of their charms. I think it’s mostly because as characters they are all amazing at creating real people, and I have a thing for real people. Watch the film and then judge me.
Besides character development through the acting prowess of this astounding cast, however, there is the scripted character development and the actual film’s aesthetic value. So let’s get into that, shall we? I found the script confusing, if I’m being honest, at times. Because the characters do not explain. There is no monologue where Lydia Tár is looking into the camera and telling us why she does what she does, explains why she is where she is. There is very little exposition in the film: we are thrust directly into the heat of Tár’s rise and fall. Yet from the very beginning (and this is incredibly important, because this is a very character-driven film), we know what kind of person Tár is. It’s not hard to tell. She sits there, at the interview, and you can tell immediately that she cares a lot about her craft, and that she is very pretentious. Not in the way that you would hate, but also not in the way that makes you like her. She is pretentious in the simplest meaning of the term.
And the time jumps between scenes can also be confusing. For instance, the distance between Tár being on top of the world and being at the bottom of her career is one cut, and at times it can be almost jarring. To this day, I do not know where Tár’s exile was, and I refuse to use Wikipedia for that. It doesn’t impact the viewing experience at all, this tiny tidbit of information, but it is never explained and I’m petty enough that I remember it.
Of course, after watching My Fair Son, the editing of this film and overall structure made me want to weep tears of gratitude, but then again, maybe that’s not a fair comparison to My Fair Son. It was, after all, a small budget gay film in mainland China, whereas Tár is from one of the connoisseurs of film at his best.
I also think that this film really does a wonderful job of not making a big deal of certain small moments that really do speak to a greater issue, and instead of attempting to answer these almost hypothetical questions, it merely settles for raising them. For example, that scene when Tár is intimidating a little girl who is bullying her daughter Petra? She introduces herself as “Petra’s father.” That one small line says so much about who Tár is. It’s like that old quote: put a man in a woman’s place, and he becomes a woman. She is put into a position of power that usually men occupy, and instead of becoming a woman who helps other women, she essentially becomes a female carbon copy of those men. She even introduces herself this way, whether that is for the girl to understand in the context of heteronormativity, or because Tár sees intimidation as a male thing to do. Or the scene when a student storms out because as a POC pangender person, they didn’t want to play Bach and Tár tears into them. That too, was such a powerful statement. Who was right, Tár or the student?
The film as a work of art is also stunning. The scene behind the waterfall? The contrast between the character and the people around her? The one shot during the aforementioned POC scene? The scenes when Tár is running and runs past various billboards as she slowly loses her mind? Or the very beginning monologue? The film is stunning when taken as a pure work of art, and I will forever respect the backing track of Hildur Guðnadóttir.
Would I recommend this to just about everyone? No. Not really. But would I recommend this to a cinephile, to a Cate Blanchett stan, to a classical music lover, or even just to a person who wants to actually think while watching a film? (We all have those films that we watch just because of how braindead they are and how little effort they require from our part, which for me is always Barbie Life in the Dream House.) Yes. Definitely yes.
Happy Saturday!!
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