>_“Don’t be so eager to be offended. The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring conformity.”_

Could arts be viewed independently without considering morals of artists? I think reducing the movie to being about _"cancel culture"_ is doing it a disservice.

I had no idea what to expect going into _Tar_, but I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it. It's sharp, it's in your face, it's dynamic, a brilliant piece or writing. It's almost unbelievable that this is not based on a true story because it all feels so incredibly real.

The pacing was slow, especially the first hour to hour and a half, however, it somehow made 158 minutes pass by without me realizing.
Performances, cinematography, screenplay - all of it is just done so well. The dialogue can feel very pretentious, especially when it dives into the engine that drives classical music. Cate Blanchett is so mesmerising that you actually forget it's Cate Blanchett and that Lydia Tár is not a real person. It’s the kind of complex role that women only rarely get.

What I loved. The ending! Perfection! [spoiler]Having trouble finding the words to talk about the plot but apparently rock bottom for a famous conductor is a live anime show.[/spoiler]

Despite being a huge Cate Blanchett fan this isn't the first movie of hers I didn't finish (Malick's "Knight of Cups being the other).

Having to sit through minutes of credits before the movie even starts, followed by a fifteen minute interview with the main character doesn't help to take me into the movie. So does not knowing all the musical terms they are using here. You hear the words but can't make sense of it (ultimately it might not even be important to understand it but you feel you should). Shortly thereafter another long scene at a restaurant were I again can't make heads or tails what they are talking about. I feel like I am already watching for an hour but it's just barely half of that and I'm looking for reasons to watch this for two more. After another fifteen minutes went by I give up. Why do I want to know more about this person, why should I care ? I don't know.

At the two hour mark, the movie just breezing by me, I decide it's not worth it for me. In the past I wrote somewhere, that I would watch Cate sitting on a chair for two hours. And I'd rather would've done that.

See, I can't even tell you anything about the content of the movie. I just described how I experienced it.

Not for me.

Abstract and pompous like the titular character, Tár throws you in at the deep-end and seldom gives you time to start kicking your legs and get your head above water before unpacking these characters and the world they inhabit. We the audience are thrown into the suffocating world of Western classical music, the cut-throat nature of which is apparent right from the jump. Tár has multiple things to say and it says them all with ambiguity and a passing comment, nothing direct or forced; this off-hand delivery will completely glance off many and makes the subtleties of this plot impenetrable for most. There's discussion of cancel culture, religion, spirituality, ego, heirarchy and positions of power, prestige, wealth, sexuality, art and the nature of mastering your craft; so many messages just thrown to the wall for the audience to pick up and form their own understanding of. There's also so many vague scenes that are left to the viewers interpretation to draw meaningful conclusions from, many that define Tar as a character and how you feel about her. There's also some very good horror elements dotted throughout that I feel might go unnoticed as they are very "blink and you'll miss it" in nature.

2022 really is the year of the character studies, with Tár and The Whale leading the charge. I think I preferred the latter much more than the former, but I can see the merits of this movie and the craft that has gone into its creation. Blanchett completely embodies this character, and her performance is as good as you've heard. If you enjoy dissecting film, watching them over and over to discern details that you missed the first time round, then Tár will be your favourite movie of the year, maybe even the decade. There's so much to pour and ponder over here I feel compelled to try and carve out another viewing of this behemoth. I feel going into the dense opening act of the movie armed with the knowledge of how it all plays out might shine some light on what originally was an impenetrable wall of music lingo and cold open character plots.

A masterpiece? Possibly to some, but you're going to have to work hard to get the most from this dense, layered mammoth. Prepare yourself for at least two viewings, you're gonna need it.

This is fascinating, I loved every second of it. Such a brilliantly written script and Cate Blanchett’s performance deserves every possible accolade, Lydia Tár is one of the best characters I’ve seen in a long time. The way the film tackles [spoiler] pretension, artistic ego and achievement as a veil for perceived integrity, and the abuse of power that results from it [/spoiler] really spoke to me. Should artists be held accountable or not? Should we seperate art and artist? What is the effect of cancel culture on art? These are questions I’m currently asking myself, as one of my own favorite artists made anti semetic remarks and alligned himself with highly questionable social movements just a few weeks ago, tanking his own career. I used to be firmly in the camp of seperating the two, but this movie made me reconsider that, which is quite an achievement. An achievement made all the more impressive by the fact that there’s no spoonfeeding going on here. The main character isn’t judged in an obvious way and Todd Field clearly wants you to draw your own conclusions.

Now, the script is super intricate, there’s a lot of technical mumbo jumbo in it. Having a background in music (and music theory) myself, I can honestly say that a lot of that stuff went over my head. I got the impression that parts of it were meant to be satirical, but still: you don’t need to feel stupid if you don’t have a perfect grasp on what all of that means, because it’s not the crux of the story. Your focus should be drawn to the journey of our main character, which is intriguing by itself. It starts out as a drama, but then incorporates elements of psychological thrillers as the film progresses. After the movie finished, I immediately wanted to go back and dissect how we’d gotten to the point where we end up.

The filmmaking is very Fincher-y: it’s cold, impersonal, distant, and it has some of the best one takes you’re going to see this year. It’s confidently slow paced, subtle and the director likes to linger on certain shots for a long time, which will inevitably lead to some of the general audience calling it '''''boring''''', even though it obviously isn’t. In fact, I can even see it winning Oscars in a few technical categories, it’s that exceptional.

9/10

Cate Blanchett is truly fantastic in Tár. I'm sure she'll be nominated at pretty much every awards show. But the film is also more than just an Oscar vehicle. It addresses a wide range of issues affecting the world of arts in the twenty-first century. It's about separating art from the artist, systemic power abuse a la "MeToo," and the so-called "cancel culture." The focus here, however, is not on the victims. Instead, for almost the entire runtime (a whopping 158 minutes), we follow the fictional conductor Lydia Tár (Blanchett), who is guilty of quite a few things. Not everything she's accused of is true, though.

Not everyone will like the way the film answers the various questions. It positions itself too strongly in a certain direction for that. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to follow the main character in her downfall. I was also able to understand everything to some extent, even though I don't have much of a connection to classical music or the orchestral business. Yes, there are a lot of technical terms used, but you don't need to know them to understand the plot.

I did have an issue with the pacing, though. There are several lengthy, riveting scenes that stand out. These include the Juilliard lesson, which has been mentioned numerous times already. But I would also point to several dream sequences in which the main character's psychological breakdown is made apparent. In between these repeatedly great moments, however, the movie often became too drawn out for me. I sometimes couldn't stop myself from looking at my watch. But the film drew me back in near the end. I especially did not foresee how the story would end for Lydia Tár.