As it happens every year, the cinematic creations presented for various prestigious awards provided film fans with the opportunity to argue about various surprises, shocks and undeserved nominations.
However, there were not many critics who complained about the special attention and well-deserved interest that was given to the psychological drama “Tar” directed by Todd Field. The heartbreaking tale of fictional composer Lydia Tar has been voted one of the best films of the year since its release at the festival in September and has continued to garner prizes and honors throughout the awards season.
Although the lead actress Cate Blanchett already has two Oscars to her name thanks to The Aviator and Blue Jasmine, it is very possible that she is quite capable of receiving a third statuette for this work. At its core, “Tar” subtly touches on the current “cancellation culture” of events and individuals who are rejected by public opinion because of their deeds, and in doing so, leaves viewers with an ending that some of them may find incomprehensible.
What is the movie Tár about
The opening of the film details the protagonist’s past accomplishments, showing that, having become the first female conductor at the Berlin National Philharmonic, she is now writing her own long autobiography and participating in many prestigious projects. Lydia has even received prestigious awards for famous movie soundtracks, highlighting her successful career.
However, the story gets darker and darker as it goes on. She is revealed to be a little pretentious about music. She always looks down on what she considers inferior mediums, such as video games. Judging solely by her actions, Lydia should certainly be considered a villain. She is incredibly cruel to her students, breaking into a racist tirade that causes one of her students to leave the class.
Worst of all, Lydia engages some of her students in sexual relationships. After a student named Krista tried to leave, Lydia blacklisted her from the industry, causing the humiliated student to commit suicide. The recurring pattern of leaving makes Lydia Tar a villainess, and it is shown in the film that she is finally being held accountable for her actions.
In general, Lydia starts a new abusive relationship with her students, hiding the past, and her cycle of sexual exploitation continues. The complexity of the film emphasizes that Lydia’s position of power and influence requires that any relationship she has with her students be abusive. It turns out that “Tar” is dedicated to the study of the lies that rapists tell themselves in their constant attempts to justify their actions.
In fact, this form of display leaves the audience the right to determine for themselves the degree of guilt of the heroine in her own humiliation and career failure. This makes the film much more complex and appealing.
The meaning of the film Tár
Overall, the dynamic of “Tara” follows Lydia’s career downfall after she is honored at a celebratory festival where her life’s accomplishments are discussed. Only when she puts together an ensemble for her next performance, details from Lydia’s past come up, which reveal that she once had a sexual relationship with a former member of the previous cast, who became depressed and anxious, leading to her suicide in the middle of the film. . Lydia faces the consequences of her actions as she refuses to apologize for her wrongdoings.
In this way, Tar describes the nature of public discourse quite accurately and includes more than a few timely storylines that seem to be plucked straight out of current news headlines. In fact, it is not surprising that due to the authenticity of the script and direction of the film, many mistook it for a real story.
As a consequence, while the main message of this film offers a relatively balanced view of the state of today’s conflicted society, its central character in the face of the main character is completely uncompromising to the very end. And the closing moments of the film almost literally confirm the great irony regarding Lydia and her uncompromising arrogance.
Movie ending explanation Tár
As seen in her initial Q&A, Lydia can only talk about her vulnerabilities under the guise of her artistic accomplishments, as she feels she is above discussing her private life in an interview. In the now iconic classroom scene, it is shown that Lydia is often deliberately defiant when she is not in the public eye.
It was subsequently revealed that Lydia’s unwavering belief that brilliant artists should not be held to the same moral and ethical standards as others became evident after what was revealed about Krista. After all, the main character, after the ill-fated suicide, tells her assistant Francesca to delete all messages from frank correspondence. This frightens both Francesca and Lydia’s wife Sharon Gidnow.
Moreover, despite the tragic outcome of the previous perverted relationship with the ward, Lydia approaches the new student – the promising Olga Metkina, and begins to promote her position in the ensemble, manipulating the scorecard.
Meanwhile, after realizing that Christa’s parents intend to sue Lydia after their daughter’s suicide, she consults a lawyer to discuss her options, while still intending to continue her career by replacing her deputy conductor, Sebastian Briggs.
However, Lydia’s actions are finally exposed to audiences outside of a select artistic community when a video of her tirade against another student goes viral on a famous vlog.
Simultaneously, she travels to New York to face a lawsuit by Christa’s parents, who reveal that Francesca passed on incriminating correspondence between Lydia and the deceased.
As a result, Lidia’s book presentation event is met with protesters, in Berlin she is completely expelled from the orchestra due to disagreements and indignation, Sharon’s wife even refuses to allow Lidia to see their adopted daughter Petra.
Stripped of her connections and status, Lydia sinks deeper into madness. Even her brother is hostile to her for turning her back on their family and hiding the fact that she grew up in a backwater neighborhood, fearing that the bohemian music community would consider her “inferior”.
It was also revealed that she had changed her real name, Linda Tarr, to show a false higher class. However, Lydia essentially destroys any sympathy the audience may have for her when she bursts into the concert hall, making a live recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, to engage in a rough verbal skirmish with Eliot Kaplan, her replacement conductor and former friend.
The most dramatic moment in Lydia’s disappearance from public view comes at the very end of the story, when she moves to the Philippines to avoid the annoying controversy in the United States and Europe.
When Lydia asks the manager of the hotel she is staying at to recommend a place for sexual gratification, he sends her to a brothel. There, Lydia is told to pick a young woman from a “fish tank” where a dozen young women sit in front of a massive window, waiting to be picked. She meets the gaze of one of them, who is sitting in the same position as Olga in the orchestra. Shocked by her vision, Lydia runs out of the brothel and is overtaken by a fit of vomiting and crying.
The film ends when the viewer sees Lydia again performing in front of the concert hall, although this time she will definitely not be able to conduct selected works by Bach. Surrounded by a throng of cosplayers, Lydia performs the theme song from the Monster Hunter video game series with the same ardor and professionalism she displayed with Mahler’s play.
That is, it turns out that the woman who once condemned the recognition of modern composers in favor of the classics is now playing for the public at the festival of computer games. It turns out a sharp satire on how artists who, due to their arrogance and stardom, have become persona non grata even for loyal fans, are forced to reinvent themselves.
The final part constantly hints that Lydia’s struggle with depression is intensifying, and this is consistent with such a reading of the separation of the arrogant heroine from the real world. In the end, it turns out that her obsession with perfecting music will never end, and the final scene seems to be the beginning of Lydia’s attempts to return to the top of the musical world.
Not what I was expecting when I started watching the movie, but realized the brilliance in the script and performance.