19/12/2020
About Director Nolan’s Tenet
By Yetagesu Endale
Have you ever wanted to go into the future and alter the reality for the best? Well, a new sci-fi thriller film from legendary director Christopher Nolan attempts to do just that. The film is entitled TENET and takes you deep into the world of inversion unlike time travel to make the world a better place. Too technical? Tenet gives you all the answers. Use the word TENET itself to get a glimpse of inversion. Well, I won’t give any more spoilers. However, if you end up not understanding it, remember- as a single line goes in the film, ‘don’t try to understand it, feel it!’
Taking Tenet as the best film Chris has ever made is a total mockery of his career because every movie he has made is nothing less than ‘the best’. With Tenet he has only maintained his grip on the tools of great story telling, incredible cinematography, commendable visual effects, heart-pounding music and wonderful cast. Suffice to say, Tenet is another masterpiece on Christopher Nolan’s repertoire of films.
There are only a few directors in Hollywood who can’t make bad films one of which is definitely Christopher Nolan. Every time he picks up a camera, a lot of cinephiles including myself literally fidget to catch it as quickly as possible. Thankfully, he has never disappointed us. In fact, we always witness authenticity in his stories and ingenuity in the way he tells them. This time around we felt sorry about not catching TENET early as the film suffered a lot of delays because of Covid-19. This disease affected not just Tenet in particular, but it completely crippled our movie-going experience. To Chris’ detriment, Tenet has not been enjoyed a lot in cinemas as it should have been. He is not a fan of streaming either, but a traditional cinema guy who thinks movies don’t belong in the streaming world. However, given the inconveniences, a lot of people visited cinemas defying the fast-spreading disease.
Known for making great cinema time and time again, Chris once pointed out that whatever film you get your hands on, try to make it the best it could be. This attests to the self-investment he pours into his every project. His success cannot be ascribed to how much money he is allowed to spend on a project, but how much he gets invested in the story. In fact, he didn’t start making movies with big budgets and expensive gears at his disposal. He started small like most directors. His directorial debut, Following, was made with only $4000 and cheap gears. But, the film brought Chris forth and indicated what he would do should he have more resources. Then, he made Memento in 2001 with nearly $5 million. Based on a short story by his brother Jonathan Nolan, Memento was both critically and commercially successful. After years of observing what he is capable of, studios now succumb to whatever budgetary requests he comes up with.
Tenet is a whopping $200 million film- (this might not be accurate as there are a lot more costs including marketing and the like). This budget might have allowed Chris to communicate his vision as well as he intended. But, it is all about the story for him. Be it The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Interstellar or Dunkirk, we usually end up discussing the stories after leaving the cinema halls. As Nofilm school.com team put it Chris puts every penny on the screen. That’s what he did with Tenet. It is a great cinema told with cinematic fervor. Tenet digs into a complex idea that keeps viewers questioning what it is all about. The picture is aesthetically attractive and emotionally gripping. It embodies what Chris Nolan is known for- great story telling and extremely advanced (and of course dangerous) filmmaking.
John David Washington is the lead in the film. He gave one of the best performances of his career. In 2018, he was able to astound us all with his stellar rendition of Officer Ron Stallworth in director Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman. Collaborating with another great director this time, John is really unstoppable. His partner-in-crime is Robert Pattinson who has visibly given everything to his character. The villain is the veteran Kenneth Branagh. He is really something. Chris has indeed been able to extract wonderful performances from these and all the other actors in the picture. It is exciting to see them interact among one another.
The biggest complaint that many filmgoers and filmmakers alike have about Tenet is the sound mixing. The film is also accused of being too complex. Well, I didn’t complain at all. Instead, I tried to understand why Chris chose to do what he did. I didn’t understand it to be honest with you, I felt it!
Tenet is an utterly entertaining, beautiful and authentic cinema. Watch it, I mean FEEL it!
