‘Tár Review: Cate Blanchett Orchestrates Her Own Destruction

"TÁR" is more than America's great film about "abandonment culture," a phrase ridiculed at every turn, but this dense and difficult portrait of a female lead's failure demands to be seen through that lens only from the start. Shots is the captivating and seductive third film from Todd Field, who is holding onto the fences of the electric digital age with both hands, trying to hold us tight for 158 minutes in the hopes that it will finally shake us.

"TÁR" moves slowly and dryly to loud laughter (even the emphatic title is a confident joke), but Field doesn't seem ready to shock his liberal audience. It seems like a difficult needle for a film to open up onstage to an explanation with The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik not having to be present in a microfocused film.

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But in the maestro's first film in 16 years and his only original screenplay, if someone was telling you where to go, you'd probably be guessing. Open the final scene. Instead, Field comes back to us as a wild yet incredibly moving character study, bathed in millions of shades of gray. "TÁR" tells the story of a pioneer whose desire to copy the greatness of the past exposes her to the modern trappings of the present. The film is very bright and amazing as is.

"TÁR" has been in development since the days when the desperate and dissatisfied Project Gravity came to light a decade ago, but it tells a story that, without it, could only have happened in its final installment. . It's the sort of film that only someone who has watched the world burn for too long could make, I just don't understand why, in a way that makes the heroine seem totally blind to what she should be afraid of. He doesn't have to play with fire himself, and the distance allows him to focus on the nature that nourishes him.

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"TÁR" may fetch $57 (give or take) at the box office, but anyone who buys a ticket will be motivated to destroy the German orchestra from within, or at least write why. Let's not blame him.

Following in the footsteps of game-changing giants like Scott Rudin and Tracy Jordan, Lydia Tarr is one of the few people to have won the EOOT. Of course, any accolade can take the mantle of the run-down apartment Lydia shares with her partner/concert organizer Sharon (Nina Hoss) and his adopted Syrian daughter in Berlin, the New York-born leader's path to eternal life. It is reserved for legends in their field.

Legends like Gustav Mahler's Lydia will record their Fifth Symphony with the German orchestra she recently conducted for seven years, cementing her legacy as one of the greatest conductors of her time. Leonard Bernstein, who taught Lydia everything she knew about the time and challenged her. Johann Sebastian Bach, an incredibly demanding fool whose music stands as the sole symbol of the whiteness of the ancient world.

It's worth noting that Lydia's heroes are all male, but she's a self-proclaimed "U-Hole lesbian" who, inspired (apparently) by Celine Samama, takes out her enemies with nothing but cheek wrinkles. And she refused to do the "genre show" that made her successful as the first and only female conductor of a large orchestra. We can imagine how brilliant a woman like Lydia is to fly to heaven or what she must do to stay there long, but "TÁR" describes exactly how the world can be. A man who does not see the sun in his eyes.

Blanchett has created an epic Icarus for the 21st century. The "Carol" star reportedly directed the film's long, drawn-out scenes herself. As Lydia slowly loses her ability to change the rhythm of the world around her, "TÁR" finds tragic delight in discord between a performer who has mastered the instrument completely.

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We've seen Blanchett play women on the brink of nervous breakdowns, but she never leaves the screen with her terrifying energy. The controlled destruction of his performance here offers a more nuanced (and sensitive) look at the social dynamics behind the #MeToo movement than any other male actor or character. “TÁR” deserves Blanchett's evolution of the old description of the separation of unnecessary art from the artist, in which the artist separates from himself.

Lydia is a tough, savage character whose flesh may resemble shark cartilage more than skin, but her genius powers are tempered by her genius powers, and we can't help but wonder what each of these things truly believe in. It is important. Complement each other, like the hands of a clock, or work with the same precision as an orchestra conductor. In fact, it is not entirely correct to call it a conviction of conscience; It would be more accurate to describe Lydia's mental state as a side effect of the system that sanctified her success. A system that imposes a hierarchy like Lydia's fame seems troubling, and a system that convinces her that the only way she can maintain her status is by using her full worth.

Needless to say, this doesn't bode well for the sorority that Linda and new investment group leader/banker Elliot Kaplan (Mark Strong) formed to support female musicians in the classical music community. One of these young musicians, a violinist in her 20s named Krista Taylor, seems particularly unhappy under Lydia's strict tutelage and taunts the director by demanding attention Lydia will not listen to. Lady on Fire" Noemi Merlant plays Lydia's full-time assistant and part-time accomplice who feeds her boss little white pills and silences her victims in exchange for the implicitly promised promotion orchestra).

Lydia defends with perfection that kavanah (the Hebrew word for ritual, referring to the state of seeking attention) does no harm to interfering "robots". She has long been described as a gifted messenger who stands on a mountain and brings the word of God to the masses.

Field's role is exemplified by the dramatic opening sequence in which Lydia humiliates a nervous BIPOC Juilliard student by refusing to play the music of a dead racist white man like Bach. Lydia stands at the piano and sings: "Don't get mad so fast." Small differences lead to narcissism. As in many of the more breathless scenes in this harrowing but joyful film, the tension arises not from a clash between two competing viewpoints, but from the fact that they are being squeezed together and choked to death.

On the one hand, Lydia argues that a single piece can be transformed into an infinite array of meanings; She plays a simple tune in three different ways, delivering one of the rare moments in this film when someone actually makes music (the field often maintains a fetishistic sense of deprivation, pushing the audience to the third act's climax). On the other hand, it confirms the earlier notion that the power of wisdom is inseparable from what we call power. Unless we allow this wisdom to weaken and vice versa, it cannot last. "Not everyone can drive, honey," Lydia comforts her daughter much later in the story. "It's not a democracy."

Contextually, Lydia's plot has something to quash, but Field has long since made it, even after Christa's self-immolation sparked a viral storm of immorality. Lydia Schopenhauer wants to know where Twitter was when she accidentally threw an old woman down the stairs, but power is always a deal with the devil, and everyone on "TÁR" is forced to protect their relationship accounts. The transactions that hold our world together.

A smaller version of this story might tend to blame the victim, or be too frightened to do so in a desperately didactic way: "TÁR" crescendos towards Lydia. The film doesn't stand on its own, picking up its own themes until even the biggest beats in history are played off-screen just because Lydia refuses to listen to them.

This slow revelation is mediated in the conductor's relationship with an aspiring young cellist in the orchestra (British debutante Sophie Cowher, instantly believable as Russian Olga Metkina). The dynamic between them reflects Lydia's repeated encounters with Christa, whose voice echoes in Lydia's ears throughout the film, dividing the difference between Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria and Stanley's Boast. . Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut - In this area he himself played jazz pianist Nick Nightingale. Nothing says "time's up" like Lydia hears in the middle of the night.

Regardless of Olga's reaction, the predatory intent of Lydia's approach is undeniable, but what's even more revealing is that these women have no other way of connecting with each other. The institution that connects them has been so rigidly degraded that each chair is given a special place because of its distance from the stage, and every indication of personal or professional interest between those sitting there is clouded by this. proximity to power. At this point 'TÁR' is extremely convincing in the way it reveals the gossip and politics behind the best orchestra, Hildur Guðnadottir's subtle score helps soften the veil even as Lydia explodes on screen.

But it's failure that makes "TÁR" such a powerful touring force. This long, patient film becomes subtle and personal as Lydia reaches the end of her strength. Oppressive gray skies and colorless concrete slabs, framed by text bubbles and jagged streaks of fruit in the first two hours, finally gave way to the sudden sound of warm neon lights. The last stages of this story (and the last smile) from the brutal rigidity of the construction to a soft light velvet that smells of distant universes and with amazing courage "TÁR" manages to escape from them. A spirit of cynicism that once seemed safe can drown you out.

If "TÁR" appears at all, it can be viewed as a social camouflage from its first appearance. But it endures because of the spooky tones it plays amidst a world of white noise; Watching Lydia "move into music" and convincingly pleased that she finds a way to come to terms with herself.

'Tar' premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival. Focus Features opens in cinemas on Friday 7th October.

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