“She’s such an arsehole”, the person in the cinema seat next to me rather loudly slurs to their friend. Two mini-Prisco bottles down the irony of the statement is perhaps lost on them. The arsehole they are referring to is fictitious, or perhaps semi-fictitious, EGOT winning composer Lydia Tár. She is about to perform Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic whilst simultaneously trying to contain her predatory past and present, which is reaching a rather vicious crescendo. This is Todd Field’s first film in 16 years and you can sense he has had a lot on his mind in the interim. Tár is about a lot of things but at its forefront is a questioning of the inherent politics of artistic industry. More precisely, the ways in which systems of power directly contradicts the sanctity of art itself.
Choosing the world of classical music to discuss these ideas, its inherent elitism and inaccessibility, is one of deliberate provocation. It takes a while to work out if the film is wholly self-aware of the pretences of the world it inhabits, only for it to sucker punch you with its knowingness in its closing moments. The steely colour palette Field opts for creates an emotional distance whilst still maintaining a stark, and at many times affronting, naturalism. This emotional distance extends to Lydia herself who seems unable, or perhaps more accurately unwilling, to examine the emotional harm she is inflicting upon others.
In order for all of these elements to fit into place Cate Blanchett central performance is key, and she is more than up to the task. She manoeuvres with ease through such a complex internal world that we only get a peak into. It’s refreshing to watch a film that isn’t particularly interested in having a morally just protagonist. That is to say, it straddles the line of presenting someone who is abjectly a bad person yet we can sympathise with every decision she makes. It’s a character study that requires a certain disguised precision as to keep the audience on side that is no easy feat. I do think its genuinely daring filmmaking on Fields part as one wrong move and the whole project collapses in on itself, falling into the depths of the tone-deaf and downright insensitive.
Whats more, I found many moments in the film to be genuinely funny in an unexpected way. However, every time I let out a laugh the half drunk stranger to my right would look over as if to say, “why on earth are you laughing this is a serious film that I’m trying to get drunk to!”
