[Movies] Tenet- SPOILERS

[Kyle]

Has anyone seen this cool, but problematic movie yet? I have thoughts, but only want to discuss them if someone else has seen it.

[WillyGilligan]

I saw it, thought it was massively innovative. What are your thoughts?

[Kyle]

WG! I missed you!

I agree and I also think it was incredibly smart. But it was too much to take in in a movie format. I found myself being taken out of the movie for much of it, trying to think through the consequences of what they were saying. So I don’t think it worked as a movie. I think this would have been amazing as an eight episode series where the audience isn’t constantly struggling to just understand what’s happening.

[WillyGilligan]

Thank you, I've missed you guys too. Took me a bit to go back through the podcast to find the new address.

I get what you're saying. But on the other hand, that confusion was what the protagonist was dealing with. So it made it both less and more immersive, for me. I'm used to movie mysteries being something where I put together parts of it (mostly through having watched a lot of movies and TV) and then have to watch the characters fumble around for a few minutes to figure it out. That didn't happen so much in this movie.

I could definitely see this being a series, but I don't think Nolan intends to do that. He's worked through the big concept. But that also opens a huge door for fan fiction exploring the parts he left out. If not for covid, and maybe even with it, I can see people 10 or more years from now still having idle thoughts about what the technology would imply.

Also, this movie changed my mind about Pattinson. I mean to see some of his other movies and I'm looking forward to his run as Batman.

[Kyle]

Agreed. I enjoyed the movie, but found I was just too in my head the whole time. So I didn't dislike it, but it was work to enjoy- for me.

I also agree that Nolan intends this to be the end of it- he's a movie maker. But it's such a rich concept.

I've been a huge fan of Pattinson since Good Time. And High Life and The Lighthouse just solidified that for me. He's an amazing actor.

I'm looking foward to watching this movie a second time now that I better grasp the concept.

[Kyle]

I want to point out that I love Nolan. I really do. Other than Tarantino and only a couple of other directors- he's one of my "must watch" directors where I've seen everything he's done and will see everything he does in the future.

That said, I do struggle with two things about him- women are almost always objects for his main characters, and this movie is no different. And all his characters are emotionally muted logic robots, and this movie is no different in that respect either. I would say that Interstellar was his response to that criticism (which has been present for a while), but it was kind of a bummer to see him resort to those same problematic elements in this movie.

[WillyGilligan]

Hunh, I never noticed the woman issue. I thought Ariadne had a fair bit of agency in Inception, and had more depth than the other members of the team. I'll have to chew on that a bit, but it feels like it might be related to how concept-driven his movies are.

What did you think about the future's motivations? I only remember something about them trying to change things and hoping that they survive it. But if that's the case, how bad off are things in the future? And did they cause it by going to war with the past in the first place?

[Kyle]

I don’t know the answer to any of those and that’s why I want to watch it a second time.

I felt like Ariadne was a minor character at the same level as the rest of the “team.” (Who were all men.) I think Mal’s character was probably the worst example of this- an object solely to motivate Cobb. And I understand the concept-driven, intellectual nature of his films (that’s why I love them) but I think that’s more reason why he could just do a coin flip to determine gender of characters.

[WillyGilligan]

I thought Ariadne had something of an arc, though. At least more than JGL or Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy is barely in it, and JGL doesn't change or learn in any way. She at least gets to be the audience insert. I'll have to watch it again. Oh, darn.

Mal, being dead at the start of the story, is a definite object. Or does being a dream make her indefinite...?