Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Nu astepta prea mult de la sfârsitul lumii)

 

Writer/director Radu Jude

Director on the set with Ilinca Manolache

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (Nu astepta prea mult de la sfârsitul lumii)   C+                                                                                                                      Romania  Luxembourg  France  Croatia  Switzerland  Great Britain  (163 mi)  2023  d: Radu Jude  

While Jude had great success with his earlier films, I Don't Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians (Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari) (2018) and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc) (2021), this is something else altogether, and while they play out like a contemporary Bucharest trilogy, you wonder just who the audience is for this film, as ugly doesn’t even begin to describe it, though it was listed among the top ten films by Cahiers du Cinéma: Top Ten Films of 2023 - Year-End Lists and John Waters, whose comments are worth mentioning, “A maddeningly radical, tedious, shockingly repetitious, brilliant two-hour-and-43-minute Godard–meets–Harmony Korine Romanian masterpiece in which we spend way too much time locked in the car of a confident, trashy, gum-chewing workaholic PA for a movie company as she does her chores.  When I finished watching the movie, I was pretty sure I didn’t like it, but when I woke up the next morning, I realized I loved it.  Suffer for cinema!  Sometimes it’s worth it!”  While it has the same sardonic tone, taking provocative cinema to the extreme, using satire as a cutting edge as Jude becomes a Hunter S. Thompson gonzo provocateur, where the crudeness of the vulgarity on display is hard to watch, making this a different experience altogether, targeting the attention-challenged TikTok generation, where it’s simply exhausting to sit through for nearly three hours and may challenge anyone to maintain a sense of optimism.  Not sure you’ll ever find a film with as much profanity, most of it aggressively in-your-face with torrid sexual obscenities, with an almost machine gun-like repetition that may sour after a while, as you wonder just what’s the point.  And that’s where this differs from his other films, which typically dealt with the darker aspects of Romanian history, where the message was a core aspect of their existence.  In this film, not so much, as it’s instead all about the brash attitude, like rappers spouting their shit, or social media (or politicians) taking lies and bad taste to the extreme in order to attract viewers, using corrosive black humor in the style of Charlie Hebdo which is baffling and strange, though the onslaught can grow tiresome, as there’s a serious lack of empathy in this film, which is no accident, as it’s a reflection of the changing modern world and the over-controlling corporate challenges that await us.  Using absurd exaggerations as a weapon in offensively toxic ways, Jude apparently couldn’t care less whether you like or comprehend what he’s doing, creating instead this jumbled mess of late Godard dialectical incoherency that defies viewers to stick around till the end, leaving a putrid stench in your mouth afterwards in what the director has described as a “humorless comedy,” which is actually the term he used for his previous film, but it makes more sense here, as the director is literally defying viewers to care about what they see onscreen.  The pessimism felt throughout this exhausting ordeal is unmistakable, an exposé of relentless dehumanization and the rapid decline of civilization, where you don’t kill the messenger for sending this abhorrent message, yet a lingering post-Soviet malaise hovers all over this film, like a shroud of low-lying gaseous fumes contaminating everyone who breathes.  While it’s a uniquely innovative cinematic manifesto, it also drags us through the mud of the worst aspects of social media, which are like endless commercials, forcing viewers to sit through the spewing toxic wreckage of moral rot that we would otherwise routinely avoid, as few films show such casual examples of ingrained prejudice, worn like a badge of honor, where one small takeaway is that none of this would be possible without our obsessional over-reliance on the smartphone.  Many find this scathingly funny, but it lacks the humanity and subversive hilarity of German filmmaker Maren Ade’s 2017 Top Ten List #2 Toni Erdmann, which is really funny, where an outsider’s view takes us into an extravagantly upscale Bucharest mall, complete with the first IMAX theater in Romania, an indoor ice-skating rink, roller-coaster, and multiple children’s playgrounds, yet it exists in a country where hardly anyone has any money.  While the title suggests a sci-fi apocalyptical experience, or something along the lines of Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964), but the title is actually from Polish poet Stanisław Jerzy Lec’s 1957 collection of Unkempt Thoughts, while the film itself is more of a satiric exposé of modern angst, a stream-of-consciousness, long-rambling, nihilist dissertation on the challenges of capitalism tinged with fascist leanings, shot on a mix of iPhone recordings with grainy black and white Super 16mm by Marius Panduru, who has shot most all of Jude’s films.  It’s interesting how Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast (La Bête) (2023) has apocalyptic, end of the world implications, while this film exposes the tedium and banality of modern life that may actually drive us to it.

In keeping with the Eastern European traditions of Dušan Makavejev, Jan Němec, and Věra Chytilová, life behind the Iron Curtain under the authoritative dictates of Communism created a repressive need for the outlandish, with filmmakers often resorting to surrealism or exaggerated existential absurdity to reflect the state of mind of ordinary people caught up in suffocating circumstances, literally crying out to be heard, where there was an insatiable desire to be free.  While Cristian Mungiu and his Palme d’Or winning film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) (2007) may be the best known Romanian filmmaker, over the past twenty years Jude has become one of Romania’s most provocative and prolific auteurs, directing 10 solo feature films, numerous short films, more than 100 commercials, plus a television series, though he was a three-time reject of Romania’s national film school, as he is brazenly dismissive of any formal conventions, currently a resident in Berlin under The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.  His breakthrough film, an understated family study Lampa cu caciula/ The tube with a hat | Radu Jude (2006) YouTube (22:37), is one of the most acclaimed Romanian short films ever made.  In December 2023, alongside 50 other filmmakers, Jude signed an open letter published in the French daily newspaper Libération demanding a ceasefire and an end to the killing of civilians amid the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, the establishment of a humanitarian corridor into Gaza for humanitarian aid, and the release of all hostages (Claire Denis, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, ...).  A prolific reader, making obscure references to books and history in films that are ultra-contemporary and entirely unique, fusing highbrow with lowbrow, capturing the dialectical relationship between modern art and popular culture, enthralled by the random, amateur nature of unfiltered TIkTok clips, Jude’s ferociously bleak, helter-skelter film is a mixed-media collage targeting modern-day Romania, with its corrupt politics, rampant capitalism gone awry, previous old-style Communism, racism, sexism, traffic jams and terrible highway driving, though perhaps most vociferously skewering internet culture, becoming an absurdist epic about all those little things that are taking us to the end of the world, while our own capitulation to these same exploitive forces leaves us slowly accepting and embracing our inevitable end.  Featuring the exhausted, sleep-deprived, and underpaid film production assistant Angela (Ilinca Manolache, with a small role in both his prior films), she couldn’t be more bitter or cynical about her employer never giving her a break, always pushing her to do more, suggesting she drink another Red Bull (taken in excess it is linked to abnormal heart rhythm, heart attack, and even death), as she resentfully drives around the congested, billboard-laced streets of Bucharest filming work accident victims who go on camera encouraging the use of safety equipment, hoping they will be the one selected to air on television, as that ensures them winning 500 Euros.  Reminiscent of the old TV show Queen for a Day (1956-64), where contestants competed in tales of misfortune, with the audience determining whose hardship was most worthy of the grand prize, where the show itself was basically a diversion for the network’s brazen attempts to sell commercials.  It’s worth mentioning that working yourself to death, driving until you are exhausted, is how many, including this director, got their start in cinema as shamelessly exploited young production assistants, doing the thankless and often dangerous work behind the scenes, with Jude indicating that part of the film’s inspiration was a fellow production assistant’s death in a car crash from falling asleep at the wheel after working ridiculously long hours.  Manolache has been heavily praised for her scathing performance, which includes an outrageous alter-ego character she concocted on her own years earlier during Covid lockdown, the wildly profane Bobiță, a modern day Borat, a repugnant, bald-headed misogynist with a penchant for obscenity-laced tirades and a distinctive male appearance from using a Snapchat face filter, superimposing an AI face over hers on TikTok parodies spewing right-wing, Andrew Tate-style venom that she posts on her phone several times a day, describing Romania as a “nation of sluts and pimps,” as hugely aggressive satire merges into the grotesque, which is viewed as a reflection of the overall society.  In a karmic twist of fate, Tate just happened to be indicted a year ago in Romania on charges of rape and human trafficking.  Ironically, Angela, the driver, is on the receiving end of this same kind of toxic masculinity vulgarity, as she is continually harassed by sexist, hostility-spewing male drivers on the road, becoming a regular target of profanity-laced insults, as misogyny is normalized, reproduced, and legitimized, while human suffering is caricatured and commercialized. 

The unexpected twist with this film is intercutting Angela’s monotonous travels in her car with clips from Lucian Bratu’s obscure 1982 film ANGELA MOVES ON, made during the communist dictatorship of Ceaușescu, one of the few with a female protagonist, while the screenwriter was also a woman, film critic Eva Sârbu, now embraced as a feminist film, subtitled “a conversation with a 1982 film,” which follows a female cab driver named Angela (Dorina Lazăr) visiting many of the same locations.  Conjuring up images of the past with the present, including food lines, which were forbidden to be shown in that era, and a long line of assembled people waiting to board a bus, it’s worth mentioning that at the time very few could afford to take cabs, where the world has changed significantly since the liberation from Ceaușescu in 1989, yet there’s a blasé attitude about newly won freedoms, where in both films there’s a crushing indifference to the world around them.  Both Angelas they spend an inordinate amount of time in their car, with the camera always finding the exact same angle in Jude’s film, quite a leap from the front seat car scenes of Kiarostami’s static camera in TASTE OF CHERRY (1997) or TEN (2002), where the present is shot in black and white, as she listens to raucously provocative music on the radio, anything to keep her from falling asleep at the wheel while working an 18-hour day, often interrupted with more instructions from her boss, a victim of an endless circle of exploitation, while the earlier footage is in color, often slowed down or Zoomed-in, as the director is fond of changing speed, yet both female characters are continually objectified, exhibiting their own private thoughts about the people they meet, often sarcastic jibes about what jerks the men are, exuding their own fierce independence.  The earlier film shows a completely different Bucharest, as there are less cars, which look exactly the same, no capitalist ads, while curiously showing the old neighborhood intact that Ceaușescu leveled to build his Palace of the Parliament, a massive urban planning project that displaced 40,000 citizens, and while there is expressed anger, it’s nothing like what we see in the modern era.  There’s no background information about the injured workers, who are viewed only superficially, not as real people, manipulated by an Austrian television production company operating in Romania, so they come off in a purely pathetic light, often surrounded by family, all hoping for a chance at the money they so desperately need.  On the other hand, the television executives have an aristocratic air of superiority, characterized by marketing executive Nina Hoss as Doris Goethe, supposedly the great-great-great-granddaughter of the famous German poet (his last heir died in the 19th century), where her casual indifference to the problems in Romania suggest she couldn’t care less, as all that matters is how her company looks, providing a façade of caring about safety regulations, which is all a hoax, as it’s really all about making money, where it’s surprising how easily Romanians willingly submit to foreign interests, like some sort of Faustian bargain.  In a Zoom call, we see her face floating over the Chicago River with a Trump property to the right.  German director Uwe Boll appears in a cameo as himself directing a cheesy sci-fi horror movie, where he gets into a conversation with Angela while she’s making the rounds, as she’s fascinated that he actually threatened to beat up film critics who despise his films, bragging about his boxing ability, Clip: Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (MUBI) YouTube (1:30), which plays into Bobiță’s misogynist leanings.  There is a silent memorial montage of more than 100 crosses constructed along the side of the road paying tribute to those who perished on a dangerous highway, where despite 600 deaths, nothing has been done to alleviate the road hazards.  A lengthy final sequence is the coup de grâce, featuring a fixed camera film shoot of a man injured outside the factory where he worked when a car ran into an unlit and unmarked crossing gate at night which hit the man in the head, leaving him in a coma for a year and paralyzed from the waist down afterwards, now spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.  Surrounded by his wife, daughter, and mother, the safety video is staged right in front of the factory where the accident occurred, where we see the rusty gate, but his testimony is gradually altered in repeated scenes, as after each he’s instructed not to mention certain words that might reduce viewership, subject them to lawsuits, or even worse, public scrutiny, peeling away everything that’s human about his story, with the victim showing a mounting frustration, which culminates when it starts to rain and the family is soaked waiting to finish the shoot.  Behind the scenes we hear voices speaking, where the subject is actually belittled and denigrated by the film crew, clearly expressing a pro-factory slant, as they blame him for the accident, where viewers are able to see how easily corporate sponsors can manipulate content to suit their own interests.  While the incidents are actually due to blatant security breaches of the company, with all the accidents occurring after long overtime hours, they use these videos to clean their hands of negligence.  Jude asks viewers to weigh the harm done by the corporations or Bobiță, as both feed us a load of crap.  But which is more toxic?  Which causes more irreversible trauma?  The biggest surprise, only learned afterwards, is that his mother is actually a much older Dorina Lazăr, the star of the 1982 film intercut throughout, suggesting not much at all has changed in Romania, particularly when it comes to women, while it also remains the poorest country in the EU, though they’re quick to point out that Albania (not in the EU) is worse.       

2022 Top Ten List #2 Tàr

 

Writer/director Todd Field

Field with Cate Blanchett

TÁR                A                                                                                                                        USA  (158 mi)  2022  ‘Scope  d: Todd Field

Appearing as a crooner in Woody’s Allen’s Radio Days (1987), starring with Ashley Judd in Victor Nuñez’s RUBY IN PARADISE (1993), while playing the blindfolded pianist in Stanley Kubrick’s EYES WIDE SHUT (1999), Field stopped acting and turned to directing in the early 90’s, receiving his Master of Fine Arts from the AFI Conservatory.  Only the third film by this director, premiering at the Sundance Festival with In the Bedroom (2001), separated by five years from Little Children (2006), which initially screened at the Telluride Festival, and the next is now 16 years later, each exploring spectacular human failings, moving in scope from the intimately personal first film, a potent study of guilt and grief, an ode to the futility of vengeance, to a tragic Madame Bovary variation with community-wide ramifications in the next, both adapted from previously existing sources, and finally enlarging the canvas to an epic scale in a full-blown, behind-the-scenes exploration of one of the premiere classical music conductors in the world, where one wonders if there is that much difference between conducting and directing?  Written with Cate Blanchett in mind, winner of the Best Actress award when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival, this larger than life story is the classical music equivalent of Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007), as it revolves around a massive character study of Blanchett as Lydia Tàr, the esteemed, first-ever, female orchestra leader of the Berlin Philharmonic, fearlessly told through the artist’s perspective, intoxicated by the seemingly unlimited reach of her own power, ultimately undone by a fever dream of arrogance and ethical lapses, never making it easy on viewers, structured a bit like a symphony, with its long phrases and short outbursts, where the choice musical selections capture the emotional landscape of her character, becoming one of the more complex films of the year.  Offering razor sharp insights, one of the most visceral and gripping moments is a long and detailed bravado opening scene with a captivated New York audience that immediately lures audiences into a sophisticated and intelligent discussion of classical music through one of those up close and personal onstage interviews at a New Yorker festival Q & A with The New Yorker’s staff writer Adam Gopnik, where it’s easy to admire her expertise and passion.  Instantly elevating her personal appeal from listing all of her many accolades that have been carefully prepared, she is a musical prodigy, composer, patron of the arts with a doctorate from Harvard, founder of a scholarship program for young girls studying at the conservatory, and author of an upcoming book Tár on Tár, also a rare EGOT winner (an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony), the conductor of one of the world’s most distinguished orchestras, having recorded live performances on Deutsche Grammophon of the entire Mahler symphonic output except Symphony No. 5, which is scheduled in the near future, mentored by Leonard Bernstein, and like him she exhibits a talent for articulating the dramatic power of music, yet what distinguishes this scene is the clarity and eloquence of her answers, easily comprehensible, not over anyone’s heads, breaking it down in a way that makes it easier to appreciate a conductor’s role in affecting results, TÁR - "You Cannot Start Without Me" Official Clip - YouTube (48 seconds).  Near the end of the film there’s a video of Bernstein suggesting music can express what words cannot, which seems to be the core motivation for Lydia’s work.  Taking a somewhat literary approach, making a cerebral film offering plenty of thought-provoking ideas, seamlessly shifting between English, French, and German, it relies upon long takes and a precisely measured control, strangely opening with the end credits, showing gratitude, perhaps, for those often receiving little credit, referred to as Acknowledgements (needing a magnifying glass to read), which mysteriously excludes the principle actors (their credits are shown at the end).  A live camera phone from an unknown viewer finds the director asleep on a plane to New York wearing a blindfold, eliciting sarcastic comments written on social media, establishing she is a public figure subject to her own share of ridicule, describing herself as “a U-Haul lesbian,” yet she scoffs at the idea that women conductors need a special gender-specific title like maestra, “They don’t call astronauts astronettes.”  When we see her hold her own in a public forum, however, she is clearly a beloved figure, recognized not only for her musical talents but for her intellectual acumen.     

There are common threads running through Todd Field’s filmography, which not only illustrates his prodigious strengths as a screenwriter (Oscar nominated in each of his films), but also the centrality of extraordinary female figures, Sissy Spacek and Marisa Tomei from In the Bedroom, and Kate Winslet from Little Children, all awarded Oscar nominations, with the two films earning eight Academy Award nominations between them, where this film is not expected to be any different, featuring exemplary dialogue and fully realized characters, with Blanchett providing a towering performance that may arguably be the best in her career, focusing on her strong, confident, and controlling nature, talking over people, always having the last word, having indisputably reached the upper echelon of her profession, before stripping away at the façade and revealing a precipitous fall from grace, which may leave many viewers more than a little ambivalent about just how they feel, engaging in scandalous behavior normally associated with men.  Blanchett has in the past advocated for both Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, both saddled with glaringly public sex abuse allegations, which may add yet another layer of difficulty to the subject matter, becoming a monumental film of ominous implications, with a jagged puzzle piece editing scheme concocted by Michael Haneke’s editor Monika Willi, full of mysterious clues and no easy answers.  Offering some beautiful glimpses of Berlin, including the concert hall of rehearsals, something of an architectural marvel of modernism, yet above all this exposes the personal intrigues and ties between women, as Cate Blanchett gives life to an out of the ordinary woman who tends to challenge the conventions of conformism, making us appreciate her first and then making her ethically unbearable and hateful, evoking parallels between the narcissism and hypocrisy of Hollywood in Joseph L Mankiewicz’s ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), with the psychological intrigues that arise in the relationship between various generations of artists or aspiring artists.  Lydia Tár, as the orchestra conductor, assumes the Bette Davis role, the famous Broadway diva, surrounded by Anne Baxter as her youngest admirer aspiring to replace her, emulated by Francesca (Noémie Merlant), Tár’s tireless personal assistant who tends to her every whim while continually enduring being underestimated and ignored, yet would like to fill the assistant conductor position, joined by her life partner of ten years, Sharon (Nina Hoss), the stabilizing force in her life who is also the first violinist in the orchestra.  Together they live in Berlin and share an adopted Syrian daughter, Petra (Mila Bogojevic), in a spacious and luxury chic industrial apartment that always appears darkened and impersonal, yet one of the most intimate scenes shows them dancing together to the music of Count Basie, calming the nerves after a blisteringly intense day.  Tár has lunch with one of her sycophantic benefactors, Elliot Kaplan (Mark Strong), a wealthy man who she clearly does not respect, yet he funds her scholarship program, exerting a sense of ease and comfort in her role as they discuss the internal politics and interpersonal relationships of the orchestra, with plenty of gossip and social innuendos, always appearing so sure of herself, wielding a significant amount of responsibility and power, yet we also begin to see how easily dismissive she is about the opinions of others.  This is followed by a tour de force Julliard guest lecture exquisitely filmed by cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister in an unbroken ten-minute single take, expressing a fluidity of movement with Lydia circling around the classroom, while also capturing the immediacy of the moment, accentuating every uncomfortable word and gesture as the maestro openly challenges and humiliates a pansexual student, Max (Zethphan Smith-Gneist), identifying with the acronym BIPOC (The BIPOC Project, Black, Indigenous, and people of color), as he openly resists the music of Bach, claiming he was a white European misogynist, making it impossible to identify with him.  Lydia takes the bait and turns the argument back around on him, pointing out the absurdity of his position, hoping to distinguish between the artist and the man, as his genius has overcome any and all limitations, carving out an illustrious identity that will survive into eternity, repudiating his sentiment with the utter simplicity of an introductory Bach Prelude, Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C major, BWV 846 ... - YouTube (5:18), yet her abrasive manner grows mockingly excessive and ruthlessly dismissive, becoming an exaggerated performance for the students, taking perverse pleasure in squeezing him like a bug, describing him as “an epicenic dissident” before informing him “The architect of your soul appears to be social media,” causing him to flee the classroom, calling her a “fucking bitch.” 

Despite the success of Lydia’s argument, the entire history of classical music has always been a monolithic representation of almost exclusively one race and one gender, and one need only recall that Wagner was an anti-Semite, while both Britten and Tchaikovsky had more than a passing interest in young boys, so this remains something of an open question in the modern world, subject to continual reevaluation.  The film even examines the forced denazification of acclaimed German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, as he remained in Germany during the war as the head of the Berlin Philharmonic, though he never joined the Nazi party and had publicly opposed Hitler’s regime, also Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, who did join the Party and was a Nazi favorite, waiting in the wings to replace him while helping to promote the Nazi war propaganda, which so irritated Furtwängler that he refused to call him by his name.  One would be hard-pressed to name a single female conductor who has ever achieved anything like their international prominence, so this film innovatingly projects a post-feminist world that currently doesn’t exist, with Lydia having the distinct ability to distinguish out of tune instruments or off-note sounds in the orchestra, while also acutely sensitized to unrecognizable sounds around her, which play a significant role in the film, using sound in much the same way Antonioni experimented with photography in BLOW-UP (1966).  Blanchett’s performance is easily her most exhilarating since Todd Haynes’ masterfully understated 2015 Top Ten List #6 Carol, also starring Blanchett as a lesbian, or the boozy Manhattan socialite in Woody Allen’s 2013 Top Ten List #7 Blue Jasmine, essentially seen as a maestro moving between lecterns, rehearsals, scores, and auditions, actually conducting the Dresden Orchestra, seen several times rehearsing the Mahler 5th, a commanding piece, all-consuming and haunting, providing insight into Mahler’s personal and professional control over his wife Alma when writing the piece, demonstrating a tour de force in the art of interpretation, snapping at her orchestra to finally get “the Visconti” out of their heads, alluding to the film music for his 1971 film DEATH IN VENICE, where Adagietto excerpts were prominently featured, becoming an iconic association.  Ironically 1971 was also the same year opera diva Maria Callas taught master classes at Julliard, where one wonders if she was equally operatic in her classrooms.  The film questions what constitutes accountability in our world today, examining the power dynamics of her role, as power is essential for how she has built herself up into her position, a seemingly self-made artist, the embodiment of success, who views her work superseding any gender, suggesting one must sublimate their identity in the pursuit of their art, believing it’s not useful to look into who the artist is, or their past, gender, race, sexuality, behavior, or even their morals.  Yet this position conveniently covers up the fact it’s advantageous for her that people don’t see who she really is, becoming an exposé of modern artistic arrogance, where a manipulative person with an inflated view of power abuses that power to protect their image, doing questionable things, following the same trajectory that many men have traveled before, like having affairs with young students and musicians she’s particularly attracted to while rewarding them with special positions within the orchestra.  It’s apparent the orchestra knows this is what she’s doing, and that it’s a longstanding pattern of behavior, yet they keep silent out of fear of reprisals, as they could lose their positions.  At home, Lydia runs her home life as she does her orchestra, handling each issue as it presents itself, making sure her wife takes her medicine, while also taking care of her daughter’s problems.  She seems to be having difficulty writing an original piano piece entitled For Petra, but at least according to Sharon, her daughter is the only real relationship she has in her life.  One of the most chilling scenes comes early, with Lydia delivering her daughter to school, pointing out another girl in a red coat who’s apparently been bullying her.  Lydia approaches the child, changing the entire focus of the film by speaking to her in precise German, adding a certain urgency, quickly informing her “I am Petra’s father,” before issuing a veiled threat indicating there would be consequences.  Not exactly sure what that means, or why she shifted genders, but the imminent danger associated with the threat is astonishingly real, exposing a darker side of her that is carefully concealed, a stark contrast to how extremely image conscious she is, carefully controlling her public image, shrugging off any negative allegations, and may actually be editing her own Wikipedia page, though at one point she claims this is a sabotage against her character.  Her biggest nightmare may be for the hideousness of her character to come to light, as we get a glimpse of that through the texting from her assistant Francesca, adding her own revelatory comments on social media, revealing that Lydia’s not totally in control of her image, even though she believes that she is.   

Lydia is a distinctively outré gay woman who prefers a masculine style of dress in her everyday life, a dominating presence both at work and at home, yet is surprisingly at ease when discussing the history of women conductors, those who paved the way, acutely aware of the scant history of women in classical music, where the largesse of her ego is thoroughly on display.  Blanchett has the ability to make her cruelty so charismatic, yet she would love to overlook her own personal indiscretions, as much of her power comes from taking advantage of people’s affections, making promises, offering career enhancements, as she does for an aspiring young cellist who catches her eye, Olga Metkina (played by British/German cellist Sophie Kauer), a prodigious Russian talent inspired by Jacqueline du Pré, Jacqueline du Pre & Daniel Barenboim - Elgar Cello Concerto YouTube (32:38), becoming an object of desire, exerting an incredible fascination on the maestro from the very first second, taking her under her wing, offering special favors, allowing her the Elgar solo even before she’s admitted to the orchestra, as the secrets of her past start to spill into her present.  When things go wrong it’s represented by inexplicable or unwanted sounds, like hearing a woman’s cries while jogging in the park, or the ticking of a metronome at night, activities that are never explained, yet offer clues into her psychological deterioration.  The film is essentially a treatise on power, as she ultimately chooses power over art, which may be why the film opens with the end credits, revealing the names of all the people working behind the scenes who normally receive little recognition.  Such a prominent public figure can produce an all-consuming ego and sense of pride that can be self-centered and narcissistic, to the point of becoming cruel to those around her, leading to abuses in power in a world that doesn’t want to accept those practices anymore.  Slowly stripping her of her charisma, showing us a darker side, a selfish and cruel person who can also be fragile and insecure, Lydia has no qualms about disposing of people and their feelings, behaving like a dictator with her subordinates, routinely calling anyone robots if they dare disagree, displaying a surprising ease in bending the rules for her own benefit.  “It’s not a democracy,” she tells her daughter in one of the key scenes, as there is only one conductor, creating a parallel between the microcosm of the orchestra and power in contemporary society.  In the #MeToo era, all it takes is a misplaced word, an incorrect action, or an exposed abuse to lose one’s hold on power, with recent reminders like Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine or Spanish opera singer and conductor Plácido Domingo, where it’s amazing how once glorious careers fade with changing views on sexual harassment, where Lydia becomes a mirror image, offering a fascinating and at times repulsive set of contradictions, as she can be charismatic and funny, but also ruthless and cruel, mocking her students while manifesting a cold exterior, exhibiting acute intellect while at the same time showing a cynical and inhumane side, openly disinterested in what her closest collaborators may think, simply dismissing them, where no one is immune to her abuse.  Much of the film is told in code, leaving little hints that must be extrapolated to be understood, like brief flashbacks, suggesting Lydia sabotaged and ruined the once promising career of Krista (Sylvia Flote, seen only in the beginning, blink and you’ll miss her), apparently coming too close, with subliminal sexual images suggesting she’s penetrated her private domain, sending obsessive and threatening email messages to Lydia, who quickly turns on her, calling her a rat and dismissing her from the orchestra, while sending emails to prospective employers that she’s not trustworthy and would have a corrosive impact overall.  In abuse cases with public figures, we don’t often have all the specific details, but just the allegations, so we never know what truly happened.  The same happens here, as in this instance, it’s not even clear if Lydia knows what she’s doing is wrong, as she may believe these are perks that come with the privilege of her position of power, instilling her with a near delusional sense of entitlement, with Lydia wondering where Twitter was when Schopenhauer threw some random old woman down a flight of stairs.  Yet seemingly overnight her image is tarnished, implicated in a very public suicide, with her career suddenly derailed and her chaotic life left in shambles, with angry protests following her wherever she goes, where the rapid fall from grace is quite literally stunning, as is the restrained manner of Field masterfully directing that descent, evoking chilling questions about what’s real and what’s imagined.  A film about art and obsession, Mahler’s 5th Symphony provides a link between this film and the inner decay underlying Visconti’s DEATH IN VENICE, slowly unraveling into a full-blown psychological thriller, centered around Lydia’s professional and emotional decay, as the music by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir becomes more foreboding, creating a web-like trap where the walls are closing in on her, regressing into nameless ambiguity, coming full circle in an utter and complete transformation, with no possibility of redemption, ending with distinctly out-of-character electronic music at the end, at the opposite end of the spectrum from the classical symphonies that once defined her career.  A film that invites reflection.        

Cate Blanchett and Todd Field's Closet Picks! - YouTube   picks from the Criterion closet (5:25)