Tenet
Tenet is the first film I have seen since in cinemas since lockdown began in March (the preceded, Parasite, admittedly a tough act to follow) and I left the cinema on Monday night exactly as I had entered it. Conflicted. Seeing the film on the big screen was mesmerising at moments, but at many points during the screening left me feeling not only confused but unsatisfied and frankly, unimpressed.
Tenet follows “The Protagonist” Played by John David Washington, as he travels forwards and backwards along a palindromic timeline to...Save the world? Hang out with Robert Patterson? Sleep with Antagonist Andrei Sator’s wife again before she dies? After one viewing I honestly couldn’t tell you. Terrible sound mixing aside (because enough has been said about that and I can confirm it was shocking) the film consists of a convoluted web of motives and timelines, serviced by surface-level characters who stride around dystopian London delivering sleek one-liners to an admittedly epic soundtrack and backdrop. Unfortunately, I was not convinced.
The performances were bang average and showed very little range. The overwhelming emotion from all the characters seemed to be smugness, with occasional blips of mildly concerned or severely injured. Robert Patterson (The Lighthouse, The King) and John David Washington (Blackkklansman) have proved they are incredible actors, so I did have high hopes and was relatively disappointed at how little their potential was utilized. I found the acting to be fine, the problem is the script. The robotic dialogue leaves Patterson and JDWnothing to really work with. This is easily Nolan's most emotionless film. Outside of Dunkirk, all his films have protagonists with clear emotional cores that drive them outside of the high concept plot. Whether that be a man trying to overcome his wife's death. A man trying to overcome his wife's death. A man trying to reunite with his family. A man trying to save his family. You get the idea.
Nolan has never been one for his representation of women, and unfortunately Tenet, despite moments of hopefulness proved no anomaly to his reputation. There are two main named women; Priya, Played by Dimple Kapadia, who seems to serve only the purpose of diversifying the cast, and who delivered an extremely thought-provoking one-line take on feminism (something along the lines of “being a woman is hard”). Also, Kat, played by Elizabeth Debicki, who is essentially the action movie interpretation of a noir femme fatale. The rest of the female characters are purely expositional devices and if they did have names, they didn’t stick. Kat provides the stories only attempt at emotional context; her two-dimensional relationship with her son and her uncomfortably simplistic abusive marriage (Andrei= Bad. Hits his wife. Kat= good. Ouch that hurt.). Both storylines were touched upon so emotionlessly and briefly that when Kat finally shot and killed her abuser, I was left feeling so unbothered I started to wonder if I was just being heartless.
For me, Tenet's redemption was obviously the worldbuilding. The hazy greyness that coloured most of the frames and incredible industrial CGI buildings gave me more adrenaline than all the predictable car chase/fighting/shoot out scenes combined. Along with the epic pans throughout and around the world, the most memorable to me being the pan up from the sailboat to the wind farm in the sea. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, who worked on Interstellar and Dunkirk (also Her, Jonze, 2013), and Let the Right One in, Alfredson, 2008, for which he won an Oscar) is at his best in Tenet. The film is most notable for its cinematography, and at points, this did outweigh the incoherency of the storyline. Also, the films main concept of a reversed timeline conflicting with our current one leaves great room for impressive visuals, and I'll admit when the Protagonist first drops the bullet, and it moves in reverse; I got goosebumps.
Tenet is already dividing opinions and getting people talking. The number one thing I've heard is once the film has been watched multiple times, viewers hopefully begin to pick up more of the story and enjoy it more. Despite being an incredible marketing strategy, this I have a problem with. If a film is so enchanting audiences want to go and experience its magic multiple times, great. If a film is too fast and confusing and compiles so many ideas that it can't possibly be fully comprehended unless you re-watch, some of the scenes or Ideas should be left out. And there are so many that could be left out and would leave the film much cleaner and clearer (*ahem* sailing scene *ahem*).
I do recognize that Nolans films are not for me and obviously he's doing something right in order to have gained as much following and recognition as he has. I didn’t like Tenet, in case you hadn’t realised, but also wasn’t particularly disappointed. The action sequences are good, exciting action sequences. The world is an industrial sci-fi dreamscape that is undeniably breath-taking. The plot premise is interesting and possibly bears some reward if you have time (SO much time) and energy to invest. The rest? Well...