I saw this movie a few nights ago and I’ve been preoccupied with it ever since. In some ways, this movie was tailor-made for me: It’s a film about the world of classical music and I’ve been an avid classical music listener since I was a young child; it’s a film that verges into the territory of “psychological thriller”, a genre that may be my personal favorite. And in the film, Lydia Tár, world-famous conductor, is attempting to record a performance of the 5th symphony of Mahler, one of my favorite composers.

Throughout the course of the film, Tár, who has this perfect, tough, accomplished image, soon finds herself dogged by accusations from a former student that she groomed her for sex then blackballed her from the classical conducting world when the student rejected her advances, as well as a video of a classroom lecture in which she eviscerates a “BIPOC bigender” student who can’t stomach the music of Bach due to Bach’s problematic patriarchal behavior.

The movie experiments with surrealism and psychological horror and reminded me a little of Mulholland Dr. (another favorite of mine), in the extent to which we get an inside look into the mind of a woman who is deeply troubled and has caused her own downfall.

People are predictably reading many convenient political messages into the movie (“identity politics is bad”, “cancel culture is justified sometimes”, etc.) but I think they are missing the point and that the director/writer/auteur Todd Field deliberately left many aspects of the movie ambiguous. I’m curious what those of you who’ve seen the movie think of the movie’s messaging and of the character of Lydia. Do you have any sympathy for her? Can you recommend any similar movies?

Topics: film, movies, psychology, classical music, sexuality