Blanchett is Tar

I'm not sure exactly how to classify the movie Tar. It's kind of an unsolved mystery both with its generic classification as well as within the plot of the film itself. There's a lot of music but I wouldn't call it a musical. There's a lot of drama but I wouldn't call Tar a melodrama. Tar seems like a biopic until you realize that all of it is fiction.   I guess it's no surprise that Tar is absorbing and sticky.

Yeah there are a lot of loose ends remaining in the tar but who cares. Tar is jumbled art as imperfect as passionate honesty without compassion.

The movie is all about Cate Blanchett and her portrayal of the title character, a mystery maestro or maestrix whatever who might be losing her mind in the music or bringing it to symphonic life underscoring the anxiety, jealousy and barely controlled frenzy at the heart of competive power struggling in the name of virtuosity and prestige. The dark side of civility and culture.

Blanchett is perfect in the role. She is the definition of a leading lady. Every other element in the movie, every other character is subordinate to whatever Cate's got going on and there's a lot going on.

Tar's a genius, a fraud, a student, amteral poseur, a mentor, a lesbian, a bully and a victim. She's both shallow and deep. She is articulate and sensitive to the point of intimidation. She's wide open, commanding, seductive, muli-lingual and vulnerable while she hides in plain sight, moving time with her baton while simultaneously urging and suppressing emotion with her free hand

And when she conducts the orchestra her rages, secrets, sensitivities, insight and control are impossibly magnetic to the film audience as well as to the instrumentalists that she's dominating.

Even her hair, alternating between bound and unbound, is a statement of purpose and abandon.

And you forget it's Cate. It's Lynda or Lydia or whatever Tar's actual name is. The character is as alive as the wonderful yet formidable talent of the actress.

Right now, Cate's the best actor in the movie business zooming past Streep and Winslett and Close. In Tar, she defines the title of leading lady. Every one else, everything else just follows. Yet she remains generous in her leadership.

Jessica Chastain is emerging as well. I think Cate could do everything that Jessica does but I don't think Jessica could play Tar.

I don't think anyone could other than Cate.

The film is not for everybody. It's about as far from Avatar as you can get. Tar's feeble box office gives it a chance at the Oscars but I'm afraid it's too good to be celebrated in the annual, oddball voting.

It's a long way from Africa to Berlin to New York to the Phillipines....from Bach and Beethoven and Mahler to a bizarre interpretaion of John Williams at an Asian comcon.

Tar takes us there.

Tar takes Blanchett there

Blanchett takes Tar there.

I'm glad we went with them.

Life is full of loose ends and jumbled art.