"Tár": review

[WARNING: spoilers.]

A 2022 drama directed by Todd Field (only his third feature film), "Tár" stars Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár, a talented pianist, composer, and conductor who is also an "out" lesbian spending time between New York City and Berlin. Her partner Sharon (Nina Hoss) and adopted daughter Petra (Mila Bogojevic) both live in Berlin, where Lydia is chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, for which Sharon is also first violin. Lydia's French personal assistant Francesca (Noémie Merlant) helps the harried conductor through her hectic days. Lydia Tár is a driven but very flawed woman, and the film is a quiet meditation on how those flaws catch up with her in the end.

Strangely enough, the film begins with the ending credits, during which we're treated to a black screen and credit text, but there's also the sound of a native woman singing. Presumably, this is a woman from the South American culture that Lydia studied as part of her doctoral work in musicology. Once the credits are done, we are treated to a simultaneous text and video exchange—a motif that will be used several times throughout the film. That first video focuses on a sleeping Tár as someone—maybe Tár's assistant—texts with someone else. The film follows several subplots: Lydia's relationship with Sharon and Petra; Lydia's public life as she does interviews; the question of a former protégée—and probable secret lover—named Krista Taylor (Sylvia Flote), who seems obsessed with Lydia, and who eventually kills herself. Lydia also banters with her former mentor Andris Davis (Julian Glover) and her associate Eliot Kaplan (Mark Strong), a fellow conductor. Lydia develops an attraction to a new cellist, a Russian girl named Olga (Sophie Kauer), and this attraction, along with the attendant favoritism shown to Olga, makes the Lydia-Olga relationship something of an open secret to everyone at the Philharmonic. Tár's talent is undeniable, but her urges and indiscretions begin to take over and unravel her life.

This is an unhurried movie, unassumingly shot by director Field. The acting is top-notch (Blanchett seems to speak slow but plausible German at certain points), and the cinematography is gorgeous and moody, with lighting that nevertheless feels a little washed out, as if Field were going for the ambiance of, say, a Swedish film—something both sad and a little cold. Blanchett steals every scene she's in, conveying emotion through glances, stares, and tics. Technically speaking, the movie is a marvel, and that includes the sound design: Lydia, with her sharp ear, hears every little noise. Sometimes, these noises disturb, distract, or annoy her; at other times, the noises attract her, or fascinate her, or fill her with dread. Lydia lives in a world of sound and light, and the film does a beautiful job of making this vivid for us.

The film also puts quite a few modern issues on display. One of these issues is cancel culture and its relationship to identity politics, as we see in a scene in which one of Lydia's "BIPOC" students at Juilliard says he's not into Bach because Bach was both white and something of a lecher who may have fathered as many as twenty children. Lydia defends the non-PC way of looking at Bach by noting that, even though she's a lesbian and has serious questions of her own about Bach, she nevertheless appreciates the man's genius and feels it's necessary to submit oneself to the work at hand—to feel it resonate within oneself. The debate with the student ends acrimoniously, a true reflection of what it's like, these days, when two people on opposite sides of the culture war clash. The movie's use of cell phones and social media also provides some commentary on the state of modern culture. We see how texting and Twitter can be sources of distraction and disturbance. And perhaps the biggest modern issue the movie deals with is grooming, i.e., the seduction of young people into sexual activities—something Lydia herself is very likely guilty of: she's in a stable relationship with her partner Sharon, but she also has a history of pursuing young ingénues.

Along with the modern issues, the movie also has at least three major themes: time, power, and the relationship between the artist and his/her art. Time is something that Lydia talks about at the beginning of the film as she's onstage, in front of a large audience, discoursing on her life and work. In explaining the role of the conductor, she describes herself in almost deific terms, as a being able to start and stop time, to lead by establishing rhythms. A ticking metronome haunts Lydia, at one point, during a nighttime scene. And on numerous occasions, Lydia's thoughts get interrupted by knocks on her door. All of these things mark time in some way, and together, these events give the movie a weird, subtle cadence. When it comes to power (a cherished theme among postmodernists), well, the movie explores Lydia as a conductor and as an older woman who seems to be seducing younger women, and we see many different hierarchies at play. Lydia's steadily descending arc throughout the film is also a reflection of her gradual loss of power, fame, and influence. By the end of the film, Lydia is in humble circumstances, indeed. Finally, the theme of the relationship between the artist and his/her art is explored both explicitly and implicitly throughout the film. Lydia's argument with her Juilliard student about Bach is the clearest example of how this theme gets explored, but the movie invites us to appreciate Lydia herself as a flawed artist who has a legacy of monumental accomplishments. How do you evaluate the worth of someone who might be shitty in person, but who might nevertheless produce works of sublime greatness?

"Tár" moves at a slow pace that guarantees most people won't want to sit through it. Blanchett will be widely lauded by critics for a performance that most of the hoi polloi won't bother to see. Along with being slow, "Tár" is also too repetitive with those damn door-knocking scenes, and while some moments in the movie seem dreamlike or metaphorical, not much is made of that imagery. I also thought that the film focused too much on Lydia-as-conductor and not nearly enough on Lydia-as-composer. I wanted to hear more of Lydia's own music. And unfortunately, the story also relies on a trope that we expats are often sensitive about: that losers in the West end up teaching in Asia. Additionally, it was frustrating to see Mark Strong—who, in real life, speaks perfectly flawless German*—reduced to a bit part speaking exclusively in English despite so much of the movie taking place in Germany. Not having Strong speak in German felt like a missed opportunity. Many folks will come away from "Tár" finding it long, boring, and tiresome. Truth be told, I can't really blame them. I appreciated the movie's slow, meditative pace, its treatment of major issues, and its obvious love for orchestral music, but I'm not in any hurry to go back and watch "Tár" again. Once is enough.

So that's "Tár" in a nutshell: visually and auditorily beautiful, filled to the brim with philosophical issues and social commentary, mysterious and metaphysical, quietly sad... yet also a bit pretentious, slow, tedious, and taxing for people who'd rather sit down and take in an action flick. Do I recommend the movie? Yes, I do. But a bit like with an old, slow, quiet Korean film called "Why Did Bodhidharma Go East?", I'd say this movie is not for everybody, and you should be in a pensive mood to appreciate it. One final note is that a lot of the dialogue went over my head either because it dealt specifically with music—and I'm not a musician—or it dealt with the world of music, throwing out names and periods and work titles that I'm completely unfamiliar with. I suspect that a person with a deep musical background could watch "Tár" and pick up on all sorts of hints and clues and layers that I completely missed. It's a testament to both the director and the principal actors that everyone strove for what looked—to me, anyway—like musical authenticity. That, at least, came through to me.

Watch "Tár" at your own risk. This is no babbling brook: it's the still water, running deep.

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*A young female German YouTube commentator who lives and vlogs in the US did a video in which she rated non-German celebrities' ability to speak German, and she gushed that, if you didn't know who Strong was, you'd never guess he wasn't German.