“Tenet” (2020) is Too Creative for Its Own Good (Part II of II)
(continued from Part I)
The fundamental issue with “Tenet” is that it saddled a baffling concept with an unnecessarily complicated story. There’s Russian oligarch Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh), about whom the only thing film makes clear is that he’s the villain. Then there’s his wife (Elizabeth Debicki) and the fake paintings she had his estranged husband buy, not to mention a chase for petroleum by Sator, Protagonist and his handler Neil (Robert Pattinson).
True intentions of all these characters are revealed in frustratingly small increments, which doesn’t bode well for a film with a complicated set-up. “Memento” may have been hard to follow because it told a story in reverse, but the story itself, if told in proper time sequence, was a fairly simple one. This allowed the audience to focus and mesmerize in the unique story-telling.
Nolan doesn’t give you such a break in “Tenet.” Watching it, you don’t grasp the concept, you don’t comprehend the story and you don’t follow the visuals. About the only thing you do understand is that Christopher Nolan let his imagination run wild, and you begin to suspect that this movie is what happens when you give Picasso a brush and tell him to go wherever his creativity takes him.
To be sure, the visuals of this film are extraordinary. Depicting time going in reverse is nothing new, but there’s artistic novelty in showing explosions in reverse while those who surround it go forward. I suspect this was made possible through a combination of acting and special effects, but I couldn’t tell how much I should credit the good acting and how much I should marvel at modern special effects.
And here I return to my original question, for I’m sure Christopher Nolan is quite pleased with himself for putting a unique vision onto screen. But I can’t imagine a casual movie fan finding this incomprehension galore to be a pleasant experience.
This, then, leaves the target audience to film enthusiasts who are willing to come back for seconds, if only to figure out what the first time was all about.
In that regard, I must be fair. As the film goes on, it does seem as though the random pieces Nolan sprinkled throughout fall into place; at the very least, the film makes an effort to do so. But knowing that pieces come together and actually wanting to put them together are entirely different things.
I consider myself to be an above-average movie lover. I’ve even completed my share of complex puzzles. But even I don’t care enough to invest the time and energy to re-watch this film in order to see how everything fits, or worse, how it doesn’t.
