Tár
I’m convinced now this is a comedy. I don’t mean this in a disparaging way, it was riveting, but that last minute made me reevaluate everything that had come before. Lydia Tár, and I’m going to copy/paste that surname for the duration here, is introduced giving an interview on stage, and a lot of time is taken up by her ludicrously extensive list of accomplishments. The term EGOT, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, probably wasn’t made up for 30 Rock but it’s the first place I came across it. In addition to that, she was the conductor of basically every major orchestra in the world, all while shooting down the snowflakes, sexually harassing anyone she feels like, threatening children in German (the scariest language) and publishing a highly-anticipated autobiography. In hindsight, her plan to complete all of Mahler’s symphonies with the best, most important one, number five, feels a lot like she had two days to retirement on a boat.
Other than threatening that child I mentioned above, she doesn’t really do anything particularly egregious on screen. She gets incredibly horny for a hot Russian cellist, but said cellist is also legitimately a very good player. More on her later. The video doing the rounds on social media was heavily edited to make her look at lot worse than she was. I guess she spent a decent amount of time covering up evidence that she’d sabotaged the career of one of her students and driven her to suicide. That’s pretty bad.
Meanwhile, I don’t think she really gives any display of actually being talented. I’m just a prole so I have no idea if her conducting is impressive or not, but we don’t hear any original music, the bits she does compose onscreen are, you know, terrible. She’s riffing on her dying neighbour’s I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up alarm (unknowingly). She noodles on the piano a bit. They even have the conversation that conductors kind of just stand there waving their arms about.
The rest of the plot is her life unravelling bit by bit, with the suicide coming to light, Tár getting owned over and over by Olga the cellist, her wife and child getting alienated. There are horror moments; Tár jogging when a women screams in the distance, and is never found. Whatever that stuff with the mazes was about, no idea who was sending those. The metronome in the cupboard, the score being stolen. The brief interlude into her neighbour’s horrifying apartment. The damp underworld that Olga supposedly lives in? Very unsettling. But here are some funny bits:
Firstly, Olga. Tár immediately falls in love with her, but Olga doesn’t give a single shit. She recounts a performance that made her fall in love with classical music, and then points out she had no idea who the conductor was. Tár eagerly brings her on a trip and asks if they should get dinner in half an hour. Olga says she’s jetlagged and going to sleep but she’s seen leaving the hotel in full going-out gear minutes later. It’s great shifting by Blanchett from imperious god of all she surveys to essentially a puppy.
The final Mahler performance was a fakeout worthy of the house switch in the Silence of the Lambs. It had built up for so long and for her to rush onstage and shove Mark Strong out of the way to try and take over the performance was pure gold.
And yes, obviously, the very end. She has been driven out of I guess both Europe and the US, and ends up in (Wiki says) the Philipines. We have another orchestra setup, another serious preparation, applause, come out on stage to conduct… (Wiki says) the theme from Monster Hunter, to row after row of cosplay dorks. Sublime.