Tenet

Egy banális cselekmény, amelyben két szereplő (egy férfi és egy nő, akik között működik a kémia) normálisan beszél, mindenki más pedig olyan rejtjelekben, hogy ez kirívó logikátlanság nélkül fejleszthető lenne egy ultra kifinomult látványossággá, tele váratlan helyzetekkel és példátlan vizuális attrakciókkal. Vagy inkább egy példátlan attrakció, ahol egy felvételen néhány szereplő előre, néhány pedig hátrafelé fut, és ez nem tűnik sem viccesnek, sem furcsának, hanem éppen ellenkezőleg, sokkolónak és látványosnak. Nolan az időbeli ellentétek iránti imádatáról áttekintően és jelentőségteljesen vallott az Eredet című filmben, most már csak más elméleti szintekre viszi a témát, új alműfaji elemekkel kibővítve (itt a Bond-filmekkel). Egyre inkább ködösít, színlel, mesterségesen bonyolít és felfúj, amennyire csak lehetséges, hogy mindent még messzebbre és magasabbra toljon mint legutóbb, miközben rafináltan elrejti a történet gerincvonalát (ami az Eredetben álmok voltak). A gondolkodó nézőre kacsintva olyan kijelentésekkel, mint "Fogalmad sincs, miről beszélek... Válasz: Nem, de rendkívül fontosnak hangzik." akár alibiként és értelmezhető, de én inkább úgy fogom fel, hogy ez egy elnézéskérés a tudatos logikai hiányosságok miatt, és ellenkezőleg a bátorság és a kivételes műfaji progresszivitás elismerése. A TENET valóban egy másik dimenzióból származó techno-thriller. Az utolsó jelenet Pattinson-nal, ami helyenként majdnem megnevettetett a maga finom abszurditásával, a néző a filmmel kapcsolatos lelkiállapotát illetően a Casper Van Dienre emlékeztetett, a Csillagközi invázió című filmben. És valójában ez volt a legjobb dolog, ami történhetett velem a TENET-tel kapcsolatban, ha már szeretnem kéne. U.I. A Göransson tarol, sokkal lendületesebb és innovatívabb hangzást adott, mint amit a Zimmertől elvárnánk (ami azért csak hallgatva sokkal kellemesebb lenne). (2020.09.07)

For me, the best Nolan since Inception, i.e. in ten years, but with some “buts”. The most important of which is that the barrage is so relentless that it’s impossible to absorb. By this I don’t mean the big picture, which is pretty clear and sensible by the end, but the details during the journey. What was the role of several secondary characters in the story as a whole? What was the thought process that led the protagonists to choose the plans they choose in several parts of the story? How did they know where to go, etc. All the dialogues (and there are lots of them!) are simply reduced to the exchange of vital information, and there are so many that most people, myself included, are unable to remember them well enough, let alone connect them to all the other information that was given before and all the other information that is yet to be given, and I don’t think this is our mistake. If Tenet had the same amount of plot but was twice as long, I would have objectively enjoyed it more. As it is, I would have to watch it at least once more and hope to make sense of those smaller bits. Regardless, technically it’s awesome and the concept is brilliant. The scenes that mix events going forward and backward in time are unlike any other film and there where moments I thought my head would explode. This is exactly I want from Nolan, so I am very satisfied, though I understand people who aren’t or won’t be so, if only because Nolan doesn’t know how to work with female characters, that’s an objective fact. PS (Spoiler): If we consider the motivations of the “villains” (the invisible ones, not the Russian guy), shouldn’t we be actually rooting for them? :) (2020.08.26)

This time Christopher Nolan got a little off the rails and became his own enemy. Tenet is of course a great piece, very fast paced and nice to watch, but unfortunately it disappoints in the very things that should elevate it above the classic summer blockbuster. Nolan may have announced that he's pretty much making his own Bond movie, and it looks like it for the first half, but it's more or less a classically conceived spy thriller clashing with his cool direction, where he keeps his distance from everything. And the audience has to go with him. Tenet then becomes a downright Nolan flick somewhere around the halfway point, but unlike Inception, which is the closest the film comes to it, here we don't discover the rules of the new world gradually, and no one explains them in breathtaking scenes. Nolan simply takes the characters and the audience and throws them into deep water, regardless of whether they can swim. What's going on? How does it work? What affects what? And who's to blame for it all? That's more or less dealt with on the fly here, and I reckon I missed half the stuff. I did end up enjoying a lot of the spectacular action, where things were a bit weird, but I didn't really care why. I reckon on a second viewing I would have been clear on it, kept track of everything and got everything in order. But for perhaps the first time ever with Nolan, I'm not sure I want to watch it a second time. (2020.08.24)

I don’t want to be mean to Tenet. Yes, I enjoyed it as a solution to a quadratic equation, as an endless conversation with an android in whom someone implanted the EgoBooster 3000 chip. Yes, I understand who the protagonist is here and I will not haggle with a person who understands entropy and is not afraid to use it. But no one can expect that this ostentatiously conducted puppet show full of flatly-spoken phrases and motivations subject to narrative mechanics will evoke in me anything that is even remotely close to fascination, and even further away from emotional investment. In short, I cared even less about Tenet than Inception and Interstellar combined, and my degree of indifference was far greater regarding the film about people waiting on the beach, with a few other approaching them whose watches move at different speeds. For me, Nolan has changed from a magician who could draw me into his intricate magic into a puppeteer morbidly obsessed with wires and switches. I understand that it doesn't matter that McGuffin was pulled out of someone’s ass – it only matters that he functions in an entropic bidirectional. Ok, if this is a Bond film for future generations, I'm glad I grew up with the past one, which discovered insight and later the basics of psychology. (2020.08.31)

Nolan spins the threads of time, reverses entropy, and becomes definitively his own genre benchmark, no longer needing to prove anything to anyone. He plays a stimulating game with the viewer that is, at its core, justifiably simple because its magic lies in its precise narrative composition, which inevitably demands full attention and multiple viewings. I gave up the first time and the composition of the timelines together with the thunderous music threw me into lethargy. It was only on the second viewing that I enjoyed the elaborately complex structure that makes you think and gives nothing away for free. It’s a fascinating and immersive experience in every way, with such unique production values that it is almost impossible to compare it to anything else. I read the Q&A breakdowns for this film and consider them proof that the viewer is really just a small cog in the great game of one principle. (2021.11.01)