Starring: Cate Blanchett, Noemie Merlant, Nina Hoss,and Mark Strong. Also Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover and Allan Corduner
Distributor: Universal Pictures International
Runtime: 158 mins. Reviewed in Jan 2023
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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This American-German psychological drama portrays the life of a female world-famous conductor/composer, Lydia Tar. The film concentrates on her orchestration of Mahler’s 5th Symphony.
The film deals with Lydia Tar’s conduct as she prepares for a performance as a world-famous conductor to perform Gustav Mahler’s 5th Symphony. It is a film about corporate intrigue, erotic obsession, musical genius, disturbed behaviour and personal duplicity. It begins by showing Tar being interviewed at the height of her musical career. She is preparing for the launch of her book, Tar on Tar, as well as a much-anticipated live performance of Mahler’s 5th. Tar’s life unravels to reveal a desire for power which fiercely energises all her behaviour. Tar is played by Cate Blanchett.
Tar is an extraordinary film for the performance of Cate Blanchett, and film shows the life of Lydia Tar in vivid detail, and with compelling complexity, nuance, force and sophistication. Lydia is a brilliant, disturbed, creative professional, who suffers from an inordinate sensitivity to noise. She is a Harvard PhD, and has risen to musical fame through the great orchestras of Boston, New York and Cleveland. However, Lydia Tar does not exist, nor ever has. The character of Tar is entirely fictional, and the effect of Blanchett’s performance is to leave the viewer wanting to accept Lydia Tar as real, so absorbing is her acting. It has earned her Best Actress at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, and a Golden Globe award, and one more Oscar may soon be hers. Blanchett, under the creative guidance of director, Todd Field, changes the acting envelope. Field and Blanchett virtually compel the viewer to anticipate the final credits to see what the real Lydia Tar will want, or wish, to say.
This is an art-house movie with enormous force, set in the international, competitive world of classical music. Tar is portrayed as the first-ever female chief conductor of a major German orchestra, and she is also a piano virtuoso. It is a film about the rise of an exceptional artist at the peak of her power, and depicts the tragedy of her downfall, when her life threatens her musical career. The film brilliantly portrays the power, gender, and personal influence of an exceptional artist in the music world, who abuses her position by manipulating people and situations in whatever ways she can.
Tar lives with her wife, Sharon (Hoss) – a violinist in her orchestra – but their relationship is tinged with resentment. Tar’s musical assistant, Francesca (Merlant) is caring but has conflicting ambitions of her own. Envy, ambition, spite and resentment play out.
The film is masterfully constructed, and almost gothically directed by Field. One doesn’t quite know whether to despise or admire Tar. As played by Blanchett, Tar is an artist of enormous musical competence, sensitivity, and ability, but egoism and predatory behaviour are firmly associated with a level of ambition that is destructive.
For Blanchett, Tar is a defining role. Lydia Tar is a morally flawed human being whose work is her life, and Blanchett gives a mesmerising performance of a musical perfectionist headed for disaster. The film offers a compelling account of an artistic genius, who is also an unfortunate human being, and the result is unnerving. Blanchett dominates almost every scene. It is the genius of Field that he directs Blanchett by not letting Lydia Tar be the person we want, or expect her to be. The film ironically concludes with Tar performing before a costumed audience in Asia where Field works in semi-fantasy mode. Tar knows there is no sympathy, but her musical artistry stays intense, despite all that she is, and what she has become.
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