Tenet: A Postmortem

[@ruurdm.fenenga2571]

Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge! (I just subscribed to your channel) ;-).

[@nevbezaire]

Tenet benefits from its confusing barrage of information because as soon as you start to dissect the internal logic it becomes evident that there isn't any. If the audience were given the time to think it out, what a miniseries would afford, no one could pretend it makes sense

[@danerft8084]

Interesting point, but what of Nolan's track record of exposition issues that we can clearly see in Tenet? Instead, I'll offer up what I find fascinating and positive, and to some extent polarizing. Consider that the film's title TENET is not only a palindrome and related to the plot, but the film itself is a kind of reflection for Nolan, a culmination of his entire film career and filmography thus far. This is his 10th film, and that brings us back to the ten in TENET. The word tenet itself is a set of beliefs or philosophy that one may hold. As for why people hated Tenet and found it lacking of profundity or substance unlike some of his other films like Inception, Memento, it has to do with it promising to serve as a return to form or revival of cinema on the silver screen. Then, of course, covid-19 came about and delayed and made it more difficult to film. Another factor that connects to the previous one, is that fans of his were expecting too much out of his film, and it didn't help that TENET was advertised as something else than what it is. So, combine these two events, and you can begin to see why it didn't bode well. By all accounts, Nolan is a talented and intelligent filmmaker who is able to display subtlety and communicate difficult concepts in his narrative, cinematography, and sound design which is notable in Tenet, but more notable in Dunkirk, Inception, and his Dark Knight trilogy. Other than that, if something like sound design is so overt and distracting that the viewer can notice it yet somehow manages to disorient to communicate its concepts, then where does that line of confusion for the sake of style or purpose start and what are the negative effects on the viewer that can be drawn and what it leads to This seems to be where the disconnect lies, and by extension where the film falters and stagnates in its pacing. For what it's worth, Tenet is a good film, but I and some others fail to see why it should be garnered as a masterpiece for Nolan or as something more than passable or groundbreaking when other films have tried to break that pattern only for it to fall in vain. Yes, the sound design serves its role in that it disorients you and tries to make you focus on the feelings that the film evokes, as well as some of the characters, but even then there are other existing films you can find that actually accomplish this disorientation better than Tenet. Any discerning or more attentive person can come up with a few examples, and more if they are asked to. But, for the sake of clarity, I won't and will leave it to people to discover and decide those films at their discretion. With Tenet, you can also debate the purpose and impact of Nolan choosing to return back to the beginning at the end to connect the two incidents that show that the Protagonist is actually the founder of the Tenet organization as well as the choice to not name the protagonist and literally name it as The Protagonist. That's it. I had to get this out there even if it looked duct-taped together.

[@al1976-v7m]

For me, Inception was also convoluted, and Interstellar suffered from Bale's mumbling. Couldn't agree with you more on Nolan and that Memento is still his best Film

[@mcnooj82]

aw yea

[@TheSkaOreo]

yea aw