Introducing Academy Award Winner Cate Blanchett -'Tár'

Cate, fucking, Blanchett. 

 

I recently enjoyed a solo trip to my local cinema to see the new Todd Field psychological drama ‘Tár’ with very high hopes, reviews had the film very well received many commenting on Cate Blanchett’s performance being a career defining  one. Now if you knew me more personally, you’d know I am in fact in love with Mrs Blanchett, I think she is one of the best actresses of this generation and deserve all the acclaim she receives- so, saying this I was not surprise her performance was being praised, more excited to see it for myself. 

 

‘Tár’ is a biopic-esque psychological drama about the classical composer ‘Lydia Tár’ who is widely considered the greatest living conductors, yet she is one symphony away from her career excellence. The film follows a relatively small cast, the majority of dialogue coming from Tár, in a brutalist, eery looking Berlin that acts as the backdrop for character spiral into paranoia and erraticism. Initially I expected the 158 minutes of this film to be shoved full of intense, drama and beautiful classical music however it is entirely diegetic sound, meaning any sound originates from the film itself, you only hear classical music when the orchestra is playing. If anything, the majority of this film feels uncomfortably quite. 

 

Cate Blanchett’s character is sophisticatedly complex, I spent the majority of the film feel as if I shouldn’t I like her yet never actually doing so. Her performance demanded the viewers’ attention in each bleak wide shot of dull monochrome, with each twitch and unsavoury glance emoting unease throughout. She plays the serial lesbian adulteress very, very well. Depicting every queer person’s guilty pleasure dream of bullying mean German children by intimidation, “I am Petra’s father.”

 

Tár is a whirlpool of intertwining themes to force viewers’ moral reasoning, subsequent to writing this review up the main question this film posed me was “should we separate the art from the artist?”.  Within one of the most memorable scenes where Tár is giving a lecture at Julliard the main themes of this film are tackled all at once, asking students “by what criteria do we judge an artist?” resulting in the snippets being removed from context editing into a video chewed up by Twitters cancel culture. While all elements seem to conspire against her, some of self-infliction, the ‘final straw’ of such is the discourse around #MeToo. Throughout the film Tár is haunted by an unknown presence I concluded to be symbolic of ‘Krista Taylor’ the young women that we are informed has committed suicide after what we are led to believe was an inappropriate affair with her teacher, Tár From Tár’s narcissistic perspective in the film we are never truly introduced visually to Krista only the fall out of her death via emails and glimpse in disturbing dreams. It is extremely uncomfortable to share the perspective of the protagonist we quickly realise is on the wrong side of the #MeToo movement many previous films also portray, although Tár having the career dominance like that of the expected workplace groomer, yet she is differing in a key aspect I personally had not seen explore before. The perpetrator is in fact also a woman.

 

Seeing everything through Tár’s perspective means it all becomes very tricky to separate yourself from the character, removing objective from all moral judgement. The questions posed are never answered in the film, leaving you the viewer to attempt this when you leave.

 

If you like Cate Blanchett, the films Whiplash and Black Swan, or complex themes of sexual abuse and artist culture I HIGHLY recommend this film. Juts going to book my second viewing now…

Evie 23 January 2023