Writer, director and producer Todd Field takes you on a wild ride with Tár, one that upon reaching the conclusion puts the previous journey in clearer focus. There are artistic choices along the way that require some afterthought as you are busy in the present deciphering the character’s actions and motivations.
Cate Blanchett is outstanding as the flawed Lydia Tár. She is a world-class composer-conductor as well as a celebrated author, but her life is one filled with pretension and manipulation. It’s fascinating to watch her hubris bring about her eventual downfall.
Field peppers the film with unusual artistic choices like running the closing credits first, having no music present during the first two reels and leaving out large chunks of exposition. This reductionism forces you to fill in more than a few blanks and makes you realise how many superfluous plot devices exist in most films of this nature. It’s daring and daunting often times simultaneously.
Predator or artist or maybe a bit of both? Cate Blanchett infuses Tár with the duality that blurs the line between manipulation and artistic bravado. This is mirrored by many of the director’s constructional and storytelling choices. By reducing some of the visual and expositional excesses it makes crystalline the artist’s vision.
Rob Hudson
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