Often I read what others have said. Such was the case with the film Tar which we watched on Saturday.
I was bored. The film was extremely long and couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a drama or about music or many other things. It was episodic in nature but should have been cut by at least half an hour. But what do I know? It has universally been heralded as one of the best films of 2022.
I found it slow and very dull. There were so many episodes that went nowhere and were never followed up. I suppose that was the intention of the film but it just didn't work for me.
And that was a surprise as the central theme of the film were two works of classical music that I adore. The main theme was Mahler's fifth symphony which is simply my favourite symphony. I have listened to numerous versions of this work and know it very well. So I guess I was disappointed when there were only short extracts and I was left humming the next bit.
The other featured work was Elgar's Cello Concerto. Another of my favourites. I would rather have listened to those two works than have watched the film.
It gets off to a bad start by giving the credits at the start which left me wondering if I had been asleep and missed the film or if the tape had broken. Ok I know they don't use film tape in these digital days.
We then had a 10 minute scene where the main character talks about music. This is like a lecture and so it goes on and on and on. There are discussions about the merits of conductors which are more like lectures than part of a work of fiction. I would be very interested in what others think of this film as I'm sure I'm probably wrong in my assessment.
I guess the advice is never take notice of critics and make up your own mind on whether something is worth seeing or listening to.