SSP Thinks Film

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but TÁR is a bit good. An often uncomfortably close character study of a complicated genius, we follow conductor Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) hailed as the greatest of her generation as she goes through a particularly tumultuous time in her life. Just as she is about to complete her life’s ambition of conducting all of Mahler’s symphonies she makes some questionable choices in her private life, which spills over into the professional, before controversies in her past resurface in a magazine profile. Just seeing the intensity with which Blanchett explains the role of a conductor or tears down a student unwilling to look past Bach’s less admirable side when talking about his music makes this well worth your time. As Tár’s life unravels around her in the final act the film becomes an oppressive psychological horror full of creepy-subtle imagery where our lead lives a waking nightmare, obsessing over niggling, unidentifiable sounds in her house before completely losing track of who she is. SSP