TÁR is one of the few times I have gone into a movie completely blind. From the start, all I knew was Cate Blanchett was the star, Todd Field the director, and the film centered on a composer. I accepted the screening without watching a trailer or reading a description. In fact, it was only after I told a friend I would be going to see the movie, I decided to watch the trailer. In that exact moment I was afraid I had volunteered to screen a horror film. The trailer was so fraught with nervous energy and tension, and blatant hints that Lydia Tár was either being hunted or having a mental breakdown, that I went into the movie expecting a thriller. And while I wasn’t entirely wrong, the whole picture of what TÁR is can’t be presumed from any of the marketing materials that are in the wild.

Sometimes you watch a movie and it’s immediately apparent what that film is about. Sometimes you take the experience home and chew on it a bit, finding different flavors and expressions along the way. Other times you walk out a bit perturbed. Upset that what you just watched didn’t make itself available for interpretation at all. TÁR sits somewhere between all of these things. Often this place is reserved for messy and haphazardly assembled projects. Films that lack the vision or forethought to assemble themselves in an easily parsable manner. TÁR exists here for the opposite reasons.

The film opens at a talk. An erudite occasion, with the crowd all stuffed into suits and expensive gowns. Lydia is being interviewed about her upcoming tour. More than that she is being asked about what her craft is. Not at its fundamentals but at its highest levels. A composer of her talent must have secrets, tricks of the trade. What is her process for addressing new pieces?

We are quickly drawn into this scene of quiet magnificence. Blanchette swims through the dialogue effortlessly, portraying this brand of quiet genius that many find so intoxicating. She’s interesting because we can’t fully understand her. An alien beneath a microscope. And as fledgling xenobiologists we observe from the outside, trying to piece together this being before us with as little information as we can get.

Much of the first half of TÁR moves like this. In between the long, excellently framed shots and beautifully staged scenery, we observe Lydia Tár as she moves about her native environment. That environment is foreign to almost all of us. Even those who were familiar with the world of classical music in my screening, upon the completion of the film, complained that so much of the film’s content left them in the breeze, lost for understanding. It feels like The Martian or Interstellar in this way. All of these, movies that are full of language that demands expertise, but provides little to no explanation for the layman. I’m also reminded of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. The novel is a grotesque work on the surface but is meant to be observed, by those who read it, through a lens thick enough to see past the confrontational violence into the message beneath.

All of this is to say, if the musical bits of TÁR lost you, I think that is on purpose.

I delayed this review being published on purpose. So many times a review exists to give you that last push to leave your house to head to the theater. You have a film in mind, you scan the internet for a few reviews, back up your initial thought process, and head out to view the thing yourself. I think the reviews for TÁR, and very obviously my own, should be aimed differently. So much of this movie is obfuscation that my guest and I discussed all that transpired through a pair of cigarettes in the parking lot and then all the way home. Because TÁR isn’t honest with what it is in its first moments. The truth lies beneath the veneer of genius and a maestro’s mystique. It rests more comfortably in the odd moments of dread that somehow slip their way into single shots. A woman standing in the back room, who is never seen again, despite Lydia going into that very room. The sounds of screaming in a park. The ticking of a metronome in the middle of the night. I delayed this review because I think you need to watch this film first, then sit with someone, perhaps this review, and think about it.

All of the musical focus of the film, despite our study’s protestations, is just noise to dull the senses. We know this much, because the first moment a neighbor approaches Tár about selling their unit and wanting to avoid the “noise” of her practicing, she responds incredulously. Because to her, what she does is so important, who she is is so important, she has no desire to explain herself to anyone who she deems isn’t worthy to know.

So before I continue I want to make something very clear: the rest of my review will include mild spoilers for this film. To review the film truly, honestly, I believe the conversation absolutely must address what this movie is actually “about,” and to do this, I must speak to the turn of events that transpires halfway through. So if you don’t want to be spoiled allow me to wrap the section of the review up. TÁR is brilliant. Made for an audience that too often is left wondering what happens when people that we place on a pedestal, topple from that very same pedestal. It is expertly shot and serenely performed, so well in fact that one could be forgiven for being slightly disturbed by its perfection, even more so by its intention to be perfect. Pay attention to every single corner of the screen, little is used as placeholder. Come back and read the rest after you have seen it yourself.

Ok.

The rest.

De Capo al Fine.

From the start TÁR is a broad retelling of The Tell-Tale Heart. In Edgar Allen Poe’s famous work, the narrator serves to convince the reader of their sanity, despite the narrator verily clearly losing their grip on that very thing. So we very nearly, with TÁR, have to start from the end. We have to understand that, at its core, this film is a depiction of a person of power abusing that power at the cost of other people’s lives. Only then, when the image is made full and clear, do we see our prompt “D.C. al Fine.”

In music this note on a composition informs the player that, from this point, return to the beginning of the demarcated section and play through to the finish. It’s an annotated refrain, in a way. Play through, back up, and play through again, knowing this time you will play to the finish.

When you get to the end of TÁR, you will inevitably rewind in your brain and play through the moments of the movie again. But now, the events that play out mean something entirely different because you know where it’s all going to end. Lydia Tár, upon our first view of her, emanates confidence. She walks tall, shoulders back, chin high. On first viewing this is impressive. A feat of personal confidence. Upon reevaluation, this is conceit, narcissism even. Throughout the movie we are shown this portrait of a woman in full control. But as the movie progresses you are made to realize, this is what she wants you to think. But the very nature of interacting with other people is that so many things simply aren’t under your control.

Lydia’s impropriety haunts her from the film’s first moments. The little things she sees, hears, or encounters, which have little or no explanation, are played to show that there are cracks in this façade of perfection. We are even made to believe that perhaps something truly is happening to Lydia because it isn't made clear, until much later, that she knows exactly what she’s done, and that the things we have been experiencing along with her, well she knew exactly where those things came from. The people around her are aware of who she is and what she has done. She is aware of what she has done. And so it is us, the viewer, who need to piece everything together. The erratic actions we attributed earlier to a brand of genius we didn't fully understand gets redefined as a defense mechanism of a malignant narcissist. The sounds, happenings and night frights, no longer the signs of a person losing their mental faculties but rather a person succumbing to the guilt swimming in their subconscious.

It is a truly fascinating work, and while I sat on this review for days, I continued to wonder how many people would walk out the theater and wonder what it was they just watched. So much of TÁR is window dressing. I remember debating American Psycho with my classmates, while I was in college. The violence in that book is placed specifically to distract from the more important fact that Bateman is losing his mind. In TÁR the trick works in the opposite direction. Where we see things that make no sense, once context is given we can go back and deconstruct all of the things we encountered before. It’s bloody delightful.

I don't think that everyone will like TÁR. It forces its viewer to pay attention to a lot of things, and half of those things aren't important. This can be understandably frustrating. But I think if you are willing to be patient, and do the work, the payoff is one of my favorites this year. The descension from renowned to forgotten is swift and startling. Partially because these things can happen so fast, but also because we are seeing this movie with Lydia’s eyes, and so we are prone to seeing only what she wants us to see.

TÁR is a tremendous movie. Every shot is calculated, often leaving room for long, drawn out images. Scenes are quiet and intimate and continuous, building a relationship between the actors and the viewers that further endears them together. What score exists is sparse and sharply utilized, leaving scenes that would otherwise be bogged down by orchestral flourish to just linger, quietly, ominously. Director Todd Field had a very clear vision from the start of this movie, and Cate Blanchette glides through every moment. This isn't a happy film, but I certainly left happy because of it.

@LubWub
~Caleb

TÁR (Focus, R)