Tenet (Christopher Nolan) *spoilers from post 475*

So I went to see this again, solely because there's a 70mm print knocking around. Gotta say it left me even more cold and frustrated second time around.

The first half makes a rake more sense on a second viewing, which I'm not sure is a ringing endorsement though. There's obviously plenty of building up to what follows, and it's a whole lot more obvious what they're talking about for the most part once you know who is who and some of the eventual destinations (the first Pattinson / Washington meeting plays a lot better on a second watch). I'm not convinced a film requiring a rewatch to clear-up all the various basic plot pieces is a some clever puzzle though: just feels like there's a whole lot of info dumped whose relevance only becomes clear in the second half, when you actually *see* the things being alluded to. I do want to stress how iffy the editing is though: I think it's really haphazard, and has the consequence of downplaying key bits of info that needed clearer emphasis.

But definitely felt little sense of stakes or urgency throughout the film, which is an absolute calamity for a film literally about averting World War 3 / the apocalypse. There's simply too much plot: we and the protagonist are rushed around so rapidly and frequently that the moment-to-moment motivations and goals shift and confuse almost by the minute. As said before, the plot here is immensely simple at its core - but there's a ****load of busywork and uninspired tangents and flat scenes in the mix. Very little pops - the best scene is the first, and that's the one that has barely anything to do with anything else that happens in the movie.

My final thought is I think Nolan staked far too much on his central time travel gimmick, which is not as interesting as he thinks it is... or perhaps he simply doesn't do a good enough job of selling it. EVERYTHING in Inception is built around its dream-within-dream-within-dream conceit - the film goes to ridiculous lengths to explain it to us, but the rewards are plentiful, coherent and exciting. Interstellar I'm not the biggest fan of honestly, but I also think it has clear, escalating stakes - the idea of each delay in space advancing decades back on Earth in particular grounds everything in a human, relatable context. That's what this lacks - Nolan tries, but I personally feel he fails. It's a film where plot drowns out all else, and where in its lengthy climax simply feels like you're trying to wearily keep track of precisely what's happening rather than being thrilled or excited seeing two hours of build up pay-off. Even basic things like having all the characters in identical uniforms... logical within the world, but just adds to the chaotic and confused feeling of the big final action scene.

Tenet is, disappointingly, the moment Christopher Nolan definitively disappeared up his own high concept.

Vulcan01 wrote: »

But they were back in time as that was featured in the film earlier? Or did she travel from there from the future and then to the past and eventually aback to the present but the boat scene would still be in the past. I dunno.

They need a mask (or, as we often see, protective bubble tents) when they’re travelling backwards against the flow of time. Once they’re moving forward again they don’t, regardless of ‘where’ in time they are.

So Kat travels backwards to a day or two before the events on the boat (the Protagonist mentions to her she needs to travel back another day or two while the others prepare for the simultaneous pincer movement). When she goes through the machine and starts moving forward again, she doesn’t need a mask... even though she’s technically ‘in the past’.

Not that there’s going to be a sequel, but I’m not sure there’s even any open-ended ending here? It all wraps up pretty conclusively, like all Nolan’s films really. Of course there’s always a theoretical expansion of the ideas, but this is a pretty self-contained beast that draws a clear line under all the core plot and character beats (unsatisfying as they may be).