Grade: A
Tár is the kind of movie that plants a new footprint upon previously untrod snow. I can’t compare it to anything, except other films that also defy comparison. I will say that it feels like the kind of thing Stanley Kubrick would have made, if he was alive and working. Incidentally, writer/director Todd Field (Little Children, In the Bedroom) appeared in Eyes Wide Shut – Kubrick’s last film. Tár is serious and heavy and intense and lengthy. Some people will hate it, and I wouldn’t blame them – but it worked for me and my weird little brain. Even at 2 hours and 38 minutes, I was disappointed when it was over, and could have sat through more.
It’s very easy to forget that Lydia Tár, the titular character, is fictional. She is a composer and symphony orchestra conductor. She is in the EGOT club (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). She’s so impassioned when she conducts, it rarely looks like she’s enjoying herself, but that it’s an exorcism, or a purge, or a necessary catharsis. One of my first thoughts was “she’s a talented conductor and pianist” – not “That’s Cate Blanchett, an actress who learned to conduct and play the piano for this role.” What Blanchett does here surpasses “performance” territory and becomes an embodiment. This should be included in the short list of her career’s most crowning achievements.
There is no clean cut beginning and end. We feel like we are dropped in on part of her life. Much has already happened when we arrive, and more will happen after we leave. There are lots of long takes, and many scenes are only one shot. Almost all the music we hear is diegetic. The camera doesn’t feel like this all-knowing tool that is there to record everything, but rather a fly in the room that gets to eavesdrop. Plots and subplots come and go. If there was one I didn’t care for as much, there would always be another right around the corner, to draw me back in. And then I’d remember that some of my favorite songs have parts that I don’t like.
A few of Tár’s many delights include a scene where she confronts a bully at her step-daughter’s school. What she says to this girl is absolutely perfect. I like how when she keeps hearing an annoying alarm from an apartment down the hall, she goes to the piano to figure out the notes, and writes a melody around it. When doing a workout, she hits the punching bag to the rhythm of Mozart’s Serenade No. 13. Near the end of the movie, Blanchett listens to a beautiful speech about the power of music, and how it doesn’t always make sense or have a name, but it can play on your emotions more than any possible words could. It might as well be describing the film.
What a pleasure it is to know that I can still be challenged and surprised by a movie in this way. Tár is so unique and original and quirky, that it makes traditional ordinary “normal” movies look inferior in comparison. I have previously said that about The Florida Project and Birdman. I can’t wait to find out what the next one will be.
Grade: A
Film Reviews by Mark 
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