An artistic masterpiece, Tár is not only about the fantastic performance of Cate Blanchett but also great music and subjects it leaves to the viewers' imagination

Sheetal

Right from the very outset to the surprising ending, the music of Tár engages. And why not, when the protagonist of the film, Lydia Tár, is a maestro, first chief conductor of German Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic. But it is not just the music, the film adopts a very different approach to psychological issues too.

As for Cate Blanchett playing Lydia, one cannot take eyes off her; she is so captivating that the slow pace and length of the film hardly matter. The film talks of multiple subjects and Tár being at the centre of it all, one is almost teleported into her mind. A brilliant writer, Todd Field hasn’t answered much, rather left it to the viewers’ imagination.

While Lydia is trying her best to conduct live recording of Mahler’s fifth symphony, which she fails to do, the film comes across as an artistic masterpiece. The same way, Cate’s reel character may have failed miserably in giving the performance of a lifetime, but her acting prowess will surely be remembered. Tár has some brilliantly filmed scenes that in a split second haunt, just as Lydia’s past haunts her — that of her former protégée Krista Taylor (Sylvia Flote) with whom she allegedly slept and later parted ways. Taylor, who dies by suicide, is actually just one among the many actions that topple Lydia’s career. A film with a lesbian protagonist, it somehow also depicts that abuse and power dynamics is not just a male’s domain.

The protagonist is flawed too, but then she is also tied down by emotion for music and her adopted daughter Petra. In one of the scenes where Lydia gets into an argument with a student while delivering a class, a bigger question emerges — whether to focus on the music or the musician. And that too is left unanswered, as the viewers focus on Lydia, the flawed human who is great at what she does best—music. It’s the only thing that keeps her going after she loses her career, marriage and adopted child. And then, she shifts to an unknown South-East Asian country, conducting music, but this time for a video game. May be one craves for more at the end, maybe not! To find out, watch this Oscar-nominated film, which marks Todd’s return. The only caveat is that it’s heavy on musical jargon and lacks subtitles, even for the German words.