This was a fascinating film – and not for the reasons, I feel, that it has been getting all the talk in the press and media.
I was held by it from the very start – and with a running time of nearly three hours that is some achievement but as the last 30/40 minutes unfolded, and immediately afterwards, my judgement was that the film fell apart at the end – too rushed, lurid story development, the more measured thoughtfulness was thrown away for an ‘exciting’ ending.
But I was wrong. Further thought helped me realize why the film was as it was at the end. The majority of the film showed Tar’s apparently remarkably perfect and successful life – personal and professional. But this was a myth; there were many cracks in this life, which were shown right from the start and the film charted how these cracks became chasms for her. And while in the early part she was shown as being remarkably in control, as these cracks appeared and widened, so she lost control – of herself, almost, it is suggested, of her mind and the more rapid and ragged style of filming in the last part of the film was a cinematic way of showing this breakdown. Quite subtly I felt – no cracks in the ceiling a la Polanski.
The focus of the film is Lydia Tar – and the amazing performance from Blanchett who is barely off screen for the entire running length – but as a person; the fact that she is a multi-faceted musician is, almost irrelevant. Putting her in the position that she holds is dramatically effective in that the position is an extraordinarily powerful one, with, potentially, almost unlimited power which is shared by very few, if any, other professions at this topmost level.
The musical setting is unusual – which is perhaps why it has received so such comment, and the music chosen for the focus was both interesting and uninteresting. Interesting as the two pieces (Mahler 5, particularly the 1st movement and the Elgar cello concerto) are astonishingly emotionally potent and in the popular public mind – the Mahler for Visconti and Death in Venice (there was a somewhat heavy-handed allusion to that in a throwaway line in rehearsal) and the Elgar for the Du Pre story – also, somewhat heavy-handedly referenced. But I felt that these two ‘real world’ references in the fictional world of the film were a bit of a misjudgment – cheap perhaps. Additionally, referencing musicians who have had legal and moral troubles (Furtwangler/Levine, a glancing reference to Karajan) again seemed unnecessary and for me had an odd effect of muddying the water by bringing the real world into the fiction al one. And presumably names of the musicians had to be ones whom almost everyone had heard of.
But I did enjoy the film and with one brief moment, I felt that Blanchett convinced as a conductor; but it would be interesting to read the views of a professional musician, particularly an orchestral player.