Cate Blanchett burns up the screen in a Pantheon-spectacular performance in "The Victorious Tar," the excellent, jarring, and intentionally confusing film from screenwriter-director Todd Field ("Little Children").
Blanchett plays Lydia Tarr, a successful and respected orchestra conductor who excels in a variety of musical fields.
The film opens with a long master class full of biographical details, in which Tar answers the questions of a journalist from the "New Yorker" magazine on stage.
The hall is filled to the brim with fans, and the viewers learn a lot about the winding life path of the celebrated conductor and the events that brought her to the top.
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But the film has other plans for its forceful and unsympathetic heroine, and slowly, her absolute control over her life and her surroundings is loosening.
She begins to hear things (such as rustlings, beeps and cries of distress), finds it difficult to concentrate on her burning matters and gets the feeling that someone is moving her things.
Is she out of her mind?
Or maybe something else, more malicious, is going on here?
"Tar" is Field's first film after 16 years, and there is no doubt that this is the pinnacle of his work.
On the surface, it's a very contemporary story that deals with cancellation culture.
But upon another look, many more fascinating themes are revealed here, which combine together to produce a surprising and insidious masterpiece, which will continue to stir you long after you have finished watching it.
It's hard to think of another character in recent times that was as complex and multi-faceted as Tarr's, and it's also hard to think of an actress who gave such a varied, virtuosic and immersive performance within the confines of one film.
This is a fascinating film that requires concentration and attention and can be interpreted in several ways.
It is full of mysteries and subtle hints, and it avoids providing unequivocal answers to the burning questions at its center.
But the more you think about him - the more his greatness is revealed.
A huge movie.
Score: 10
Blanchett in "The Victorious Tar", photo: courtesy of Tulip Entertainment
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