TENET
Its been a while- been focusing a lot on my new filters that are coming soon. I am very excited for them.
Movie Theaters opened in Maui recently, and I just found out yesterday, so you can imagine how excited I was to go. I think my last time in a theater was in March! I desperately wanted to see TENET.
I will watch any Chris Nolan film, because I feel he is one of the great filmmakers of our time. Ive heard mixed things about TENET, but if you like Chris Nolan films, you should see it.
TENET, for all of its amazing positives, has one overwhelming and critical achilles heel: It is very hard to follow, at least the first time through.
I am huge fan of these mind bending kinds of movies, and love the risks Nolan took here. It is a fresh concept, and really pushes the boundaries of creativity, but if someone like me, who craves these kinds of films struggled, its likely anyone who doesnt want to think too hard did as well.
Primer, one of my all time favorite movies of all time, was extremely confusing the first time I watched. I knew it was something great, but I didnt fully understand it. So I watched it over and over, 5 times total, in a row, and by the 3-4th time I was thrilled. The 5th time was the cherry on the cake. I believe this is what will be necessary to fully grasp everything that is going on in TENET.
I don’t think the basic idea of it is hard to comprehend, it is to the point that suspension of disbelief is satisfied, in order to make it an enjoyable experience. There are elements of Dark Night, Inception, Prestige and other Nolan films going on. It is clear he spent a lot of time thinking about and planning this, but I also feel the result is a product of overthinking, but I easily forgive him for doing so because his films are so fantastic at stimulating thought.
There were also some parts where the dialogue was so fast, or competing with other sounds / too fast /too muffled (sound design) to fully understand what just changed in the plot. Felt like they were trying to edit it down and simplicity was lost along the way, or they were trying to do too much. I had the same sense from his 3rd Batman film, too many elements, trying to do too much.
If you go into it with an open mind and not expecting to understand it all the first time through, it was AMAZING to be back in a theater and I definitely enjoyed that. My plan is to read up on the spoilers online to fill in the gaps, and then Ill likely go back to watch it again, yes in theaters!
