TÁR, a new film starring Australian actor Cate Banchett has got a lot of hype following its debut at the recent Venice Film Festival.
In what has been described as a “career best” performance Blanchett plays Lydia Tàr, a world-famous conductor and composer. Her high-profile life sees her dealing with artistic pressures, fans, proteges, colleagues and a collection of growing pressures.
Setting primarily in Berlin, Tàr lives with her partner and their adopted daughter, and her career is at an all-time high as she prepares to record Gustav Mahler’s fifth symphony with the orchestra she’s lead for a decade.
But the maestro’s world starts to come apart when accusation from her past resurface, and she fears heading into a #metoo style scandal.
The film from director Todd Field is almost three hours long but it’s been getting heaps of praise, and Blanchett is being tipped for an Oscar nomination for her performance.
Blanchett won the Best Actress trophy for her 2013 film Blue Jasmine, and was also nominated for her roles in Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Carol.
Director Todd Field has only directed three films to date, but he’s always garnered high praise. His breakthrough film In the Bedroom came out in 2001 and saw him proclaimed one of Hollywood’s hottest new directors.
The film focused on a fractured family dealing with a recent tragedy, and it earned Academy Award nominations for Sissy Spacek, Marissa Tomei and Tom Wilkinson, as well as nominations for Best Film and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Field’s second feature film came five years later when he adapted the novel Little Children for the screen. It starred Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson and Jennifer Connolly. The suburban drama also received a mountain of critical acclaim.
In the intervening decade and a half Field has worked on a wide variety of projects, but none of them have come to fruition. In a recent interview with The New York Times, the director commented on his 15-year period of developing projects saying, “I set my sights in a very particular way on certain material that was probably very tough to get made.”
Take a look at the trailer for the masterpiece he has delivered. The film will hit Australian cinemas on January 26th, 2023.
OIP Staff, image: Florian Hoffmeister
You can support our work by subscribing to our Patreon
or contributing to our GoFundMe campaign.
