The expectations and responsibilities placed on Tenet were always too high. Only a handful of films could ever live up to such a duty as being ‘the saviour of cinema’, but if there was ever a director for the job it would now be Christopher Nolan. The comparisons between Nolan and Kubrick have been made countless times before and in numerous ways, but it is pertinent to note here that Nolan’s relationship with Warner Brothers, his ability to force the studio to release the film in cinemas, is akin to Kubrick’s own artistic freedom experienced with Warner Brothers. In fact, Kubrick famously flexed his power in the opposite manner to how Nolan is now, by recalling A Clockwork Orange from UK release. So, Nolan’s fight for the ‘cinematic experience’ in an industry allying itself more and more with streaming is incredibly valuable. Simply look at Disney’s cowardly decision to release Mulan on Disney+: not only have they reached complete creative bankruptcy by following the disgustingly cynical plan of remaking their back catalogue into mostly mediocre live-action films, but they have now also clearly declared themselves to be for profit more than for anything close to a genuine artistic experience. They are ‘corporate’ in the most hideously perverse definition of that word. And I so wish I could laugh at Disney in the face of Tenet’s triumph, but unfortunately, I cannot quite do that. I can merely chastise them for their cowardice and lack of artistic integrity.
Tenet’s box office has been okay. At the worldwide box office, it is doing well, sitting pretty on $350 million dollars. But in the Covid mess that is the US it sits on a mere $55.1 million (a small part of that is also Canada’s box office). It has made back its money, including marketing, so in a financial sense Warner Brothers have been vindicated, to an extent. Warner Brothers clearly buy into Nolan’s vision, not only of his filmmaking, but also his vision in how films are best seen by the general public. And in that sense, in this case, Warner Brothers do have to be lauded. But in an artistic sense, Nolan’s Tenet is slightly more mixed.
I may as well begin with the most obvious and regularly repeated criticism; ‘the sound mixing’. People have criticised Nolan about this since The Dark Knight Rises, but I have never really had much of an issue with it until Tenet. I may have lost a couple of words in Interstellar, but I put that more down to Matthew McConaughey’s occasional mumbling and mild accent; if only I had not been able to hear Anne Hathaway’s speech on ‘love transcending dimensions’. But Tenet is the first Nolan movie that I did struggle through large sections of dialogue, and to make matters worse, every word of dialogue in this film is pretty essential. I have no idea why Nolan feels the need to have Ludwig Göransson’s, admittedly good score, blaring through the speakers during bits of important dialogue. It cannot be a mistake, Nolan is far too good a filmmaker for that, so it is a very strange artistic decision to make. On my second viewing it did not bother me as much, but the bit that did was the final climatic conversation between John David Washington’s Protagonist and Sir Kenneth Branagh’s very villainous Andrei Sator, a conversation by phone that one can barely hear is a world away from one of the Joker’s chaotic monologues or Cobb’s emotional pleading with his wife, Mal. It is actually just frustrating, on top of trying to work out exactly what is happening in that very final sequence.
The mixing problem does not destroy the film and nor do its plot complexities. I think I may just have got my head around most of it, a second viewing helped, but I am still slightly confused by certain aspects. However, as an experience, as spectacle, the film is, as one would expect, magnificent. The hallway fight scene, though not on a level with the one in Inception, is still very impressively realised, as is the car chase in Tallinn but the final attack on Stalsk-12 is truly phenomenal with one of Nolan’s best ever single shots, that of the building reconstructing itself and blowing up simultaneously. And with its dreamlike quality and the strange droning score by Göransson there is something surreal and phantastic about it. It is what cinema really should be.
John David Washington, Elizabeth Debicki and Robert Pattinson do all give very good performances. Washington is charismatic and charming, exactly what you want in your protagonist in what is effectively a spy flick. Pattinson is similarly charming and wonderfully British. And upon second viewing becomes part of the emotional core of the movie. Debicki herself also gives a solid performance, but her character, Kat, is a mixed bag. On one hand her relationship with her son comes across as genuine and authentic and her abusive relationship with Sator does also work. However, there are occasional moments of poor writing, mainly the ‘including my son’ line, when told about the end of the world. Nolan has been criticised often for poorly written women, but Kat here is not that, I just never felt her to be as much the emotional core of the movie as I think Nolan thinks she is. Her relationship with her son is hardly like the relationship between McConaughey’s Cooper and Jessica Chastain’s Murph in Interstellar or even Leonardo DiCaprio’s desperate want to see his children again in Inception. It falls flatter than that. And as for Branagh’s Sator, he is hamming it up to a ridiculous extent and is in every way a typical Russian villain in an old Bond movie, although a slightly nastier version. His accent fluctuates though as Sator is an Anglo-Russian that is actually justifiable. Moreover, his God-complex is built up enough to justify his ploy to end the world. Though I do always question how villains manage to get so many minions willing to die for an entirely suicidal cause. Do they simply not know what they are fighting for, or have they all just read too much Schopenhauer?
Overall, Tenet delivers on its spectacle and does work as an experience. However, one never feels truly involved in the film, one always feels held back at arm’s length. This is true even on second viewing, even once you understand exactly what Tenet is and exactly who Pattinson’s Neil is to our protagonist. Perhaps the aloof nature of the film is due to the overly convoluted science, or perhaps because you are always straining to hear the dialogue or because this film may simply be one step too far for Nolan. Regardless, the end result is not as cohesive or as emotionally satisfying as most of his earlier works. It is in a sense his messiest. Perhaps, weirdly mirroring the world we currently find ourselves in. Travis Scott, whose song The Plan features in the film, at least the instrumental does, described the film as “very fire” and I do happen to agree with Mr. Scott. But unfortunately, it is not anything more than that.
CineLiterate 