TÁR

Cate Blanchett is superb as the eponymous, ruthlessly focussed and highly accomplished, maestra who lives with her violinist wife "Sharon" (Nina Hoss) and young daughter "Petra" (Mila Bogojivic). Acclaimed by her peers, she is now the principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. A job not without it's complications - she must select music, inspire musicians, and deal with her less then competent assistant "Sebastian" (Allan Corduner) who was a favourite of the previous occupant of her job "Davis" (Julian Glover) whilst juggling the ambitions of her funding partner "Kaplan" (Mark Strong). This spinning plates operation means she is constantly making compromises and that impacts on all of those around her. Frequently, she must rely on her ...

I wanted to like TÁR, but I just found it boring. Way too long and drawn out. I thought the story was decent with fantastic performances but it just did not work for me. I can appreciate it as a masterpiece in film making, even though I considered it a pretty poor watch.

Score: 60% | Verdict: Decent

The downfall of a great conductor (conductress??) could have been an interesting topic. But TÁR is 2h38mins of leaving out major plot points and instead showing details in dreadful scenes that often dont lead anywhere. The viewer has to make all this up for themselves, such as whether Tár is victim or culprit. In a way, this is all quite well done. Unfortunately, the film is too boring and incomprehensible to care.

This being a film about conducting, I found Blanchetts conducting style ridiculous, though she was good otherwise. At least the Mahler 5 excerpts sounded wonderful, and so lets just conclude with that number as my rating.

5/10