Tár is the story of the fictional Lydia Tár, force-of-nature conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic -- one of the few people in such a position, worldwide, that the average non-classical-music-listener might have heard of. The movie slowly tracks her decline as a brewing scandal overshadows all her accomplishments.
Some of my disappointment in this movie probably has to do with my own misaligned expectations. I think I was expecting "Whiplash with an orchestra." Yet Lydia Tár is not a shrieking tyrant, but rather a well-regarded genius hiding her dark side. Cate Blanchett is remarkable; I should say that before anything else. Yes, she gets a couple of flashy scenes, one of which is sure to be the clip played for her category at the Oscars. But the bulk of her performance is far more nuanced. Pair Blanchett's skillful subtlety with director Todd Field's penchant for long, unbroken takes, and you can see why her performance here is being regarded as among the best of the year.
And that is essentially the only thing I liked about the movie.
Tár is a glacially paced two-and-a-half hours. For nearly 45 minutes, it didn't seem as though there was going to be a plot here of any kind, but rather a sort of "tone poem" on the life of this character as she meanders through her life. Even when the plot does manifest, the movie still takes loads of digressions. It wants to show you in many, many quiet ways that there is a monster lurking under the surface here. But no flashing sirens, no big aha moments.
So, as you can tell, I was pretty bored by Tár. But on another level, I was very uncomfortable. That has to do with the issue of representation. Tár the character is a woman in a job dominated by men. She's a lesbian, and openly so. And she is a predatory monster.
Now, part of representation is that any particular individual within a minority can be a horrible person. It's wonderful that we now get a bigger variety of LGBT+ characters in entertainment than we did in, say, the late 90s/early 2000s, where the only such people in movies were the sassy gay best friends of popular school girls. But let's not lose sight of the real world, right now, where LGBT+ people are regularly decried as "groomers" by an obnoxious percentage of the public who want to roll back any gains that have been made. Yes, it's a group that's loud out of proportion with its size, but let's not pretend that group is small.
Sure, that crowd isn't really the sort of people who would ever see Tár. But if they did, they'd find an unfortunate validation of everything they say. LGBT+ people are hiding depravity as they prey on the young and vulnerable. Yes, Lydia Tár is one person, but it feels pretty damn irresponsible to me, in the current political climate, to invent a story like this about such a person. And that's to say nothing about how the movie is tearing down a woman of prominence in orchestral music -- right in the middle of a movie that goes out of its way, multiple times, to point out just how rare that is. (They name about five real-world female composers in an early scene, and I'm embarrassed to admit I only recognized one name to clue me in that they even were talking about real women.)
Yes, "Me Too" can be men harassing men, women coercing women, and plenty of other combinations. But that's a pretty "dark rainbow" to be elevating to the spotlight by making a movie about it. And to further elevate it by calling it one of the 10 "Best Pictures" of 2022 makes me uncomfortable -- and not at all in the way I believe movies sometimes intend to make an audience uncomfortable.
Cate Blanchett is outstanding, magnificent, truly Award-worthy. And that is all. I give Tár a D+, purely in acknowledgement of her skill. Otherwise, the movie is the worst of both worlds -- boring and dangerous.
No comments:
Post a Comment