Tenet was good. Made by Ben Chinapen Writing help by CJ The X: / @cjthex Edit assist: / @laurenceonyt Patreon: / benfromcanada Twitter: / benchinapen Instagram: / benchinapen
It's funny because I'm black and I never thought about the fact that JDW was "black" as the protagonist because it was never brought up or focused on. It literally had nothing to do with the plot and I love that. Let an artist just be an artist.
@@sheeplastname430 Here's the thing ,there were certain dialog (as the one you mentioned) that would suggest it was there , however because of the scenes in which those dialog were written it leaves room for other interpretations .
Great analysis!!! But you forgot to mention the subtext: Just like Inception is about filmaking, Tenet is about film watching. The Pincer manouver is just like when you watch a movie for the second time and you already know what's going to happen, and you still feel the same way... This is the underapreciatted genius of Nolan...
Nolan has faith in his audience. I remember the first time I watched this film I knew I wouldn't understand it and I just enjoyed what I could which was still a lot! Films like Tenet and Memento are the best because the more you watch them, the more you appreciate them. The people that get annoyed at Nolan's films because they are too confusing don't understand what makes a good film. If I'm going to pay money to own a movie, it better be worth watching countless times unlike a simple Marvel movie.
you shouldnt have to watch a movie multiple times to understand it. Appreciate yes, but understand? no it costs money and time to watch a movie. If a person has to watch a movie 3 times to understand it, its not a good movie. Shit is expensive. But if people rewatch a movie to appreciate it, then the director did a good job of conveying their vision the first time Also I love Nolans works, but think Tenet is his weakest. And no, it doesnt make someone "intellectual" if they "understand" Tenet. No one will be impressed by it. It wont get you a job lol
I just don't get the enjoyment of trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense... All with dialogue that sounds like the actors are under water. Because you know... art.
The most interesting way I like to watch it is from Pattinson's character viewpoint. Because if you follow his dialogue closely, you realize he is moving in a different direction than our protagonist.
Blacks are always the criminals, poor, in the background, asking questions and subordinate in Hollywood movies. Its an agenda. The China film administration is better than Hollywood.
Sorry to disagree, but It's not that he's moving in a different direction, it's that he inverted after years (maybe TEN years?) to meet PT back at the beginning so he already knows everything, his entire life is a pincer. Once he un-inverts though that version of Neil is going in the same direction as PT for the duration of the movie except for the pincer battle. We only see the original Neil once, and it's in the opera house in Kiev when he saves PT's life while inverted. One could assume that this is the Neil that went back 10 years (or however long) and that this was the end of that part of his journey backwards, then he un-inverted and a week later met PT in Mumbai (from PT's perspective, for the first time), then continued with him in the same direction(s) for the whole movie. For example, he follows him through the turnstyle both of the next two times, until the battle when they separate. Sorry to be pedantic, it's just that the Neil we're with in the movie is for sure moving in the same direction as the protagonist. FWIW I'm also of the Max=Neil school, it's just too perfect not to fit.
@@randomdude189, monstrosity would be accurate. But, then again, that is to be expected from someone that is trying to convince the world that this film is some sort of sophisticated puzzle. The selling point of this film and a lot of Nolan films is the gimmick. If you see past the gimmick there is a very simple story. Having said that, he deserves respect for making spectacular blockbuster films that aim for profundity.
Tenet is an extremely emotional movie, people just don't get invested enough in Neil and PT's relationship on first viewing so they miss it. It's gotta be the only movie in existence where someone has to say goodbye to their best friend that is going to die *before they even become best friends.* Once you make this emotional connection, it's honestly really hard not to cry at the end when PT realizes who Neil truly is.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks this. Tenet hit me in the feels harder than I think any other movie has. Not only because of what you mentioned (which was already incredibly effective on me personally due to the uniqueness), but also because: 1. We realize Neil had to spend the last (months?) he had with his best friend acting as though they were complete strangers. "The end of a beautiful friendship" indeed. 2. PT now has to go hire and befriend Neil *knowing* that doing so has already gotten Neil killed. Especially since Neil got killed *saving PT,* I can't imagine what kind of guilt one would have to harbor the entire time they're friends. Not to mention the dread that would come from knowing exactly when Neil dies.
The final moment with Neil and the Protagonist hit my emotions like a truck. Especially the line about "for me, this is the end of a great friendship. For you, it's only the beginning."
The more you think about Neil, the more emotional the movie becomes, reaching its full emotional climax when you think about Ives saying, "We end our lives. It's the only way to be sure. But as to *when*... maybe that's every man's decision to make for himself." Neil's decision is to die for his friend. When a gun is pointed at his head, Neil's decision is to step in front of the bullet. That's how he chooses to die. "For me, this is the end of a beautiful friendship."
@@bullpup1337 It's also 'stolen' from the story of King Arthur, given that Merlyn lives backwards through time. It even has its own TVtropes page - 'Merlin Sickness'
The version of time travel that is used in this movie, the whole "what's happened happens", the whole thing that seems to have turned off a lot of viewers because it brings up the question of free will and a whole "what's the point" perspective on the whole movie, can very easily be explained by one of the most important lines of the movie. When Adam (that's what I call him) talks to the scientist, and she describes how the inverted bullet can jump in your hand, she specifies: "you need to have dropped it". This is crucial. Even if you see the effects before the cause, that cause is inherently free willed. Yeah, you wouldn't see those effects if you didn't do it, but the fact is you did do it, of your own volition, which is why you see the effects. It's not any more complicated than that: you have free will, and you can do things to impact the world. Usually, the effects of those choices are only seen after you make the choice. Nothing changes if the effects come before, you still made the choice. It was still up to you, up to your free will. Because you need to have dropped it.
Nah. What it highlights is that if there is free will, it's limited to specific moments. The dropping of the bullet might be "free will", but the catching of it, while it's going backwards in time, at that particular moment there is no free will. And I've seen this taken to an extreme in Latin and Southern European cultures. They'll argue most all of the things we go through are fated, but there's little exceptions , that enforces religious devotion, that maybe through the mercy of the Virgin Mary, you may escape your fate, by some miracle, once in a while. It's a sort of psychological survival strategy for people with hard, miserable life, who are often drawn into immoral decisions for the sake of feeding your family. To counter that, in sharp contrast, is the American belief not only in free will, but free will all the time. Every crime is a free choice to be punished, every buck earned is reward for making so many good decisions. Your comment is insightful as far as how audiencesmight feel their belief in free will is threatened, but then you make excuses, explaining that free will can be shoehorned in. And certainly the film invites viewers to think about such question. But basically the pincer manoever itself suggests free will is at least constrained quite a bit, and I'm suggesting audiences are not just threatened, mostly subconsciously, because it goes against mainstream philosophy, but because it might be the truth. Everything is fated, we're just in this for the ride, kinda living behind our eyes in mobile prisons where we might be horrified by what we ourselves do.
That's not what it highlights at all. It's just about going through the motion of having dropped it, basically matching the bullet's reversed arrow of time.
@@tahunuva4254 no, it does both and free will is explicitly addressed here. that scene literally has the protagonist immediately ask "what about free will?" after he "uncatches" the bullet, and the scientist responds "that bullet wouldn't have moved if you hadn't put your hand there. Either way we run the tape, you made it happen". It happens so fast and its like 3 lines but I think most people miss that free will is still apparent even with time inversion
@@3htthexy Oh, that's a good point. But that's going by a very non-standard version of free will (and a kinda based one, as it implies any agent has it, even "inanimate" objects). When most people use the term, they're talking about it as a kind of uncoupling from the causal chain. Like, "I'm not subject to my environment, I'm a free thinker" kind of bs. But "you made it happen" is almost the opposite of that, because it's completely ignoring the question of the protagonist's sovereignty in favour of fitting him into the chain. If the bullet jumped, and he _didn't_ catch it, *that* would be proof of his unfettered will.
I finally saw Tenet yesterday and this is the first video to accurately capture how electrified I felt by watching this movie, and helped me articulate how and why it did. Thank you!!
There is also the fact that the film itself fundamentally requires a temporal pincer movement for it to actually make sense. You have to watch the film and then go back and rewatch it knowing everything you already know from the first viewing in order to piece together a coherent story. Only after having carried out the temporal pincer movement yourself will you have witnessed a coherent plot and movie. Watching it without rewatching it is as good as watching a series of nonsensical and unrelated pictures on a screen because watching it once through is only half of the pincer movement.
@@sankrut02 Whoah. I didn't realise people had seen this comment. But anyway, I forgot to add that this is why the film is so unpopular. People watched it for the first time and hated it because they only saw half a film but to them it was a full film that simply didn't make sense and was all over the place. And then because they hated it, most people didn't bother to watch it a second time and thus they missed out on genuinely great movie. Such a massive shame.
No amount of explaining this movie as “you just don’t get it” ever outweighs the fact the movie does not make sense, linear or otherwise. Its “smart people cope.” It’s a dumb movie meant to confuse ppl of avg intelligence and draw smart ppl into explaining it away as “too smart.” It’s dumb temporal schlock.
@@ferrarriohh Mate if you think the film still doesn't make sense after it being explained, you're the only one who's dumb enough not to get it😂. It just sounds like you're insecure about not getting the film and now you're taking it out on everyone else that does get it. What's wrong with people enjoying a complex film? Nolan was being ambitious for sure, maybe overly ambitious, but what makes it wrong for him to make intelligent films that make people think? That's his passion and that's just who he is. And people enjoy his films and enjoying it is the whole point. What the hell is wrong with ye?
Ben: This movie is just Christopher Nolan going ‘THE TEMPORAL PINCER MANOEUVRE! That’s fucked up, wouldn’t that be fucked up?!’ Me: *instant subscribe*
If it was possible, I would just sit and watch this movie on a continuous loop. Two years later, prepping for Oppenheimer, I have found myself deep diving into Tenet analyses like this one once again. I saw it 3 times in the cinema and countless time since. If it was possible I would just sit and watch this movie on a continuous loop.
It was interesting to rewatch and notice the scene where they talk about Oppenheimer in Tenet, and how "the woman" who created "the algorithm" is essentially her generation's Oppenheimer. It's as if we saw the seed of Nolan's own idea to make his latest film without realising. And it's also like Oppenheimer is a prequel to tenet!
My absolute favorite detail and trick nolan plays on us is with neil. The knowledge he’s privvy to really makes it seem like hes a double agent, and the film naturally leads you to believe that. What a marvel of a film
One of the really interesting things about the movie is that we never find out who the people from the future who want to use the algorithm are. It could easily be the characters in the film, if they changed their minds later on!
Awesome job on this. One of the ways I've rewatched is looking for the red vs. blue clues. There is SO much of it all over the movie- another level of genius filmmaking and production/costume design. In this scene specifically, as the timelines merge you can visually see the red and blue vehicles merge onto the same timeline (and street) as well. I hope other people find this moment as SWEET as I do.
You guys are really not that smart, and call "genius' anything that is thrown at you, in red vs blue team do you even know who or what they are fighting? no, you never see them, they are never on the screen, never explained or introduced, u just see things blowing and unblowing without knowing who, why or what the red or blue team is fighting in two different direction of time, whole thing doesn't make sense.
I was emotionally unfulfilled after my first viewing of tenet because there was no pulling of my heart strings that Inception has with Cob’s wife. On my second viewing I realized the emotion is subliminal between Washington and Pattinson’s friendship. Imagine finding out that your friend is really a future friend that you mentor and he will eventually mentor you again in this constant overlapping of time like the Dalai lama and Panchen Lama. I think that’s why Pattinson is drunk at their first meeting, he’s emotionally preparing for seeing his old mentor for the “first” time.
I realised on my second viewing how affecting was the last talk between these two. Pattinson knows he must return an die, Washington just realises it too, and he knows that he can't do (and MUSTN'T DO) anything about it and it almost brings tears to his eyes (and to my eyes as well).
I can't be the only one thinking that the kid at the end is a younger version of Neil. (Somebody came up with the idea that "Max" was short for "Maximillien" and if so, "Neil" is the last four letter's of Max's name backwards.)
I think I’ve watched this film 30 times this year alone. I absolutely love it so much. One of the greatest realizations I had is that we are experiencing everything for the first time, just as the protagonist is. I appreciated JDW’s performance so much more when I realized every conversation, situation, experience, everything, he was experiencing it for the first time as the protagonist. I mean, the movie starts with him having just enough knowledge at the opera house. He later just gets in a car and hits go on the gps. It’s throughout the whole film and he did such a great job acting like his character is just trying to put the pieces together, LIKE US!
@@thetechsite9619 Never learn from other people kiddo. Never change your opinion, doesn't matter how much the new details make sense. Stay ignorant. /s
One of my favorite things about the temporal pincer is how the protagonist doesn't know really anything in the beginning, but as it turns out he's the temporal pincer head honcho and the reason the plot is happening
Well what’s cool about it is that he experiences the events. Commits himself to ensuring that the events continue to unfold that way. Then sends a team to move backwards in time with all of the information he has. Sends another team to ensure that he himself is committed to the mission so that a loop is created to preserve time as it is.
Just watched this in the imax rerelease. So fun. I actually love how the protagonist doesnt have a back story. To me it like a POV almost like playable character in a video game.
Blacks are always the criminals, poor, in the background, asking questions and subordinate in Hollywood movies. Its an agenda. The China film administration is better than Hollywood. Hollwood really Hates Black on Blacks Love.
Calling this movie a masterpiece is silly. It makes no sense at all. Why would a person need to watch a movie 50 times to catch meanings? Meanings that probably have nothing to even do with the movie. If you don't understsnd what on earth a film is showing you, and all you see and hear are images and noise, then it has failed in its mission to tell a story. This means it is a bad film. A movie that can't fulfil that simple criteria, of communucating what it is showing you, means the director lacks the descriptive skill to present what he wants to say. I think Chris Nolan just couldn't translate his vision. That is all. And so it is a bad movie. Simple..
A pure masterpiece... about something mind bending... time travel. Imagine Nolan making a film about the quantum mechanics or holographic universe ...man.
@@dorianjareth9198 a predictable fairytale movie but is a feel good one. If you're having a bad day, go for it. I also watch weird movies but they make me feel good, like garden state on a gloomy monsoon day
Tenet is a two piece puzzle with blunt edged - you have minimal amount of exposition and every second, every glance counts Watched it 5 times and loved every one of them, so many details that you get pick up on re-watching. It's a Masterpiece.
may i ask you a question about the inverted bullets? i rewatched the movie yesterday and i just can't wrap my head around how the inversion works. i really like the idea of the movie but i feel like a lot of small things just don't make any sense and it kinda ruins it for me. for example, before the inverted fight at the oslo airport takes place, the protagonist already sees bullet holes in the window. but HOW did they get there?? from his perspective the fight hasn't taken place yet..from his future self's perspective the fight is already over, but...like...you know what i mean?? is it meant to not make any sense? i just find it hard to like the movie if it's not even explained how the bullet holes can already be there if the past protagonist hasn't been in the fight yet. i feel like i might be thinking too much about it or that im just too stupid to get it..
@@myrk_ you're not stupid at all, these are legitimate questions, and don't beat yourself because you're not thinking about time reversal, that's exactly why I loved the concept, it breaks your mind when you try to make sense of it, so don't, just accept it ;) but - of you're really into understanding it, there are great explanations out there.
@@myrk_ it's going to confuse you even more if I'll try to explain it in text without drawings but the explanation goes like so: inverted bullets were shot in the inverted future and they "go back" into the gun in the normal (non inverted) future. Same as - normal objects just existing in the inverted world are going into the past, it's a passive ability of this space. When you take objects from the inverted plain into the normal plain it seems as if they go back, but actually, from their perspective - it's their 'inverted' future, which from the perspective of the normal plain would look like reverse existence. It really does make sense, but only if you start thinking about everything with a temporal-vector for a lack of a better term. Hope I could help lol
@@burgulize thanks for the encouraging words xd i think i might just have to rewatch it again but this time have a pen and paper with me..i know that what you're saying defo makes sense, but i'm racking my brain here haha i do appreciate it though!
I've always noted this about Tenet and JDWs performance. JDW actually feels AGGRESSIVE. When he moves he moves with purpose, he does everything as efficiently and as best as he can and it was the first movie I've ever seen that actually drew me to the leads MOVEMENT more than anything, he's just a beast.
He really is a brilliant fucking actor. I am finding myself drawn more and more to films with less dialogue and more non-dialogue based acting. I saw JDW in Black Klansman, and, although his approach feels similar (that "aggression" as you call it), he certainly picks his moments, so to speak, very well. I am stoked to see him in more traditional movie roles (I could not get through the writing in that one he did with Zendaya.)
Damn dude well put! I definitely had a similar thought; a lot of JDW’s action has an ‘explosive’ quality - especially the kitchen fight - where you can tell he’s sizing everything up and then he goes HAM for maximum effect
True, but - unfortunately - his facial expressions don't reflect that. He often comes off as a wide-eyed, fish-out-of-water protagonist, even when it doesn't suit the scene.
The video was awesome!!! One of the best video essays I have ever seen. I have watched tenet now a couple times and although I already liked the movie, your essay gave me a new insight that makes me appreciate it even more! Thanks man!
Just rewatched Tenet for the fourth time, this time in IMAX and this video is perfect. I watched this after the last time I watched Tenet and you made all the pieces come together for the first time. Having that knowledge going into this viewing truly made me realize that this movie is a MASTERPIECE. Great video.
Since Nolan gained traction, there has been a very noticeable nudge in his very excellent work. Always excited about his next engagement... Brilliant essay!
I don’t bother trying to understand this movie because I know that my future self understands it perfectly well because he’s seen it more times than me
The greatest thing about this movie to me is realizing that in the end, the protagonist probably realized he’ll have an ally in the future of whom he *KNOWS* he can trust him because he already knows him and he already knows that he’ll be saved by him. Because let’s face it, how intensely reassuring would it be to know, with 100% certainty, you can trust a *”stranger”* you’ve only just met? To have someone you’ve only known for a couple of weeks making you feel like you’ve known him for more than a decade…
That is really interesting when you compare it to a series like Counterpart. In counterpart, which deals with parallel dimensions instead of time travel, the central tenet (heh) seems to be that multiple versions of the same person would inevitably go to war if their timelines didn't progress equally (ie a man's wife dies, but he knows she is alive and well in another dimension with his counterpart. So, rather than accepting her death, he attempts to go to the other world and replace his doppelganger).
Personally think that the final Neil/Protagonist scene is one of the more emotionally engaging and interesting scenes in his career along with interstellar and the cillian murphy scene in inception
I Loved this film, but then again I watched it on HBO Max with subtitles on and the ability to rewind whenever something was too wtf to grasp in real time. The ability to go back in time and rewind the movie was clutch, as I did a temporal pincer maneuver of my own in trying to understand this film.
Yeah I really hated the film because I watched it in the cinema and the sound mixing was soo god awful I couldn't understand what they were saying enough to only understand what was going on a very superficial level.
@@impyrobot I've seen some analysis of the film on here talking the sound mixing and after seeing that, it's understandable and it actually fit in well when you see it at that perspective
Then watch Primer. When I finally thought "wait a second, this is starting to make sense" the end credits began to roll. 😂 It's the best movie about time travel I've seen (not counting Tenet), and it had a ridiculously low budget. And the acting was also great for a bunch of amateurs. Don't worry if you understand very little on your first watch, this is normal, do some research online before watching it again if you want, download a timeline chart, whatever you might think will help you.
i loved how the entire film can be fractally grouped in forward-backward pairs first half is forward, second half is backwards (while moving the story forwards). then of the second half the first half of that is forward, and the second half backward and so it goes smaller and smaller until we reach the raid scene which again works forward to the midpoint and then backwards from there. all the while returning to the very beginning of the whole movie. to have this type of temporal structure and be able to follow it is extremely exciting. i noticed the fractal temporal structure about 2/3 into the movie, and while i understood it, it was still a pleasure to watch it unfold. like a virtuoso violinist performing before your eyes.
This was such a witty movie essay, but also done so very well 😂😂 I am a big Tenet fan and still working to understand it to the fullest so I love hearing other perspectives on the film and have it describe in different ways, very well done!
I loved the part where the protagonist fights himself for the second time, and the lead up to all of that is awesome. I may not have all of the pieces in place with the whole timeline, but this movie is my favorite because it was a mindfuck and I love it for that.
When I watched it the first time, I was expecting the inverted soldier to be one of Sator’s henchman as I was still wrapping my head around the mechanics of inversion. When he got blown through the shutter door and right into the hands of his past self, it was the biggest jaw drop I’d ever gotten from a movie.
The first time you watch it you're seeing it through the eyes of the Protagonist, the second time you're seeing it through Neils eyes. The Protagonist doesn't know what's going to happen in his future, he doesn't know if the bomb is gonna go off and neither do we, its a new experience to us and we're just as confused as the Protagonist. But when we watch it the second time we know how the movie plays out and so does Niel, he knows the bomb isn't going to go off or he wouldn't be there to stop it, and we know the bomb won't go off because we've seen the end of the film before, in a way Niel has seen the end of the film and he's experiencing it exactly as we are, he's an actor playing a role as you say. We might feel like this movie has no stakes when we understand it, but isn't that true of every movie? Once you've finished a movie you know how it ends, but you still rewatch it because of the ride. In Tenets case there were never any stakes in the first place, but as we're watching we feel that there are, until in the end its revieled that there were never any stakes in the first place. You might feel kinda cheated, but the point of the movie is how you see it in your perspective.
You hit the mail on the head with this one. Tenet absolutely has to be watched twice to fully appreciate what’s going on. The first time I watched it I was ambivalent towards it, the second time I watched, I was riveted. This is an excellent film, I wish more people gave it that much needed second viewing.
@@danilejai7801 It’s a bit like The Prestige, once you know how the trick works you see the movie completely differently. You realize you weren’t watching closely, like you were told to in the beginning. Nolan is the GOAT.
Actually you don't at all, TENNET's concept is different from the (in my opinion) overused, just as unbelievable and nonsensical concept that is parallel universes. It's all bs time only goes in one direction.
my favorite moment/easter egg, and it's not until you watch it a second time, was when Neil and the protagonist first meet in the hotel lobby in Mumbai. Neil orders another vodka tonic and orders a diet coke for the protagonist. The protagonist tells Neil, "FYI i prefer soda water" then Neil smirks and says "No, you don't"
I also love how the music in that scene feels kinda ‘nostalgic’ if thats the right word. It doesnt seem to match the idea of their first meeting, but of course its because this is a reunion
@@watchdominion00 YES!!! It's the Neil's theme music in the movie, it is nostalgic all the time whenever his scenes come and it only makes sense because for him everything is just revisiting old times! :'D
Did you notice when they “met” in the theater opening scene? During the raid and ensuing gun battle, an unknown agent shoots one of the immediate threats to the protagonist and promptly turns and walks away, like he had just shown up to shoot that one guy. Notice his backpack as he turns to leave.
@@ReadABookAndLearn That was actually the last guy he shot. On a third watch, I realized Neil was the one picking key shooters off in the background. He shoots 2+ people chasing Protag, so he can successfully collect the bombs.
I like the mention you made about puzzles early on, because it suddenly clicked in my brain: Nolan basically made a film that frustrates people because it's not like most movies, which are essentially puzzle that show the solution on the box; Tenet is a puzzle that you only understand as it's put together, and our stand-in (JDW) is a self-aware puzzle piece that spends the journey discovering where he fits, and the broader picture along with us. Maybe that's not what Nolan intended, but I think it's very cool; I watch enough movies that I don't often rewatch them, and I appreciate Nolan's craftmanship in making films absolutely worth returning to.
This movie is like a visual rubics cube. The sound of one hand clapping. A 5th dimensional depiction on a 2D piece of paper. A future's past presenting presently. A known unknown. The answer to an oxymoron. Etc. Etc.
An interesting detail of that scene Ben loves: the Protagonist is on the red fire truck as it merges into traffic that has a couple of blue trucks on it. I’m probably reading too much into it but it’s like the two teams coming together as part of the overall temporal pincer movie
Also women in red coat before the meeting 14:33 - its intentional The whole movie has this blue red color coding clues On the second movie watch it is very noticeable from the very beginning For small example bag with artefact in Opera is Blue balaclava mask on "terrorists leader" is clearly Red - and if it seems random - look at all colors and objects in each scene all colors dimmed but some specific things sometime has color accent
This was an INCREDIBLE analysis. For what it's worth, the sweeping fades that are played during the truck heist are created by reversing a note into itself. The synths are played backward, then forward. The soundtrack is a temporal paradox.
This does not make it a good movie. The story is bullshit, the characters and their motivations is bullshit. Therefore, the whole movie is bullhit. It's easy.
Ended up here based on auto play; this is the best breakdown of Tenet i’ve seen and man have I seen a few lol. Love what you said about JDW, didn’t even think about why he might’ve been cast but he’s one of best in the game like his dad was after Training Day.
I've lost count because I would literally watch it going to sleep, keep it on in the background, listen to the score while working out. Tenet is more for me then other movies it's not something I've been able to put into words but this video calling it a game seems appropriate. I hope more people interact with this movie the way I have and there can be more high budget interactive movie mind puzels in the future.
"I've seen it 10 times now" Obviously, that's how many times you've gotta watch it to understand whats going on! Joking...I liked it too, but I had to watch it twice to pick up what I missed the first time, where as Interstellar and Inception I got instantly. Its the only thing that bummed me out a little.
I remember being super hyped for this movie when I watched it, the first half was generally disappointing to me but the second half was phenomenal. Then I rewatched it and it became one of my favorites from start to finish. At this point, I think I have seen it 7 times and it never gets old
@@Sujay95 That's a bit hard to achieve here I think. Perhaps the plot might've been a bit too long for the movie, and it's already 2 and a half hours long. I've watched it 5 times I think, needed to watch the second time to actually connect all the dots.
I believe it to be a deliberate act by Christoper Nolan that the film needs be watched multiple times in order to observe, and absorb all the layers of pardox happening. Almost like red and blue team, your brain is required to already know what's going to happen, in order to see what you missed last time.
@@stonedvillain79 honestly that's not a good thing. If you're required to watch a movie several times just to understand the basic plot, then that's a major flaw in my eyes. Especially since people were saying (at the time this was coming to theaters) that this movie would need to be good to keep theaters alive. Thankfully this movies plot didnt kill off theater because of other easily understood movies coming out lol.
Thank you for making this because I love this movie and it frustrates me that people ask so many questions and don't just watch and enjoy it for what it is. Like it was so crazy that I had to watch it at least 2 3 times. It's a dope movie just stop overthinking it and watch it
Absolutely loved this film from the first time I watched it. I love JDW and his understated, yet powerful presence and acting. I hope to see his future work. I loved the score and was kind of pleased that Hans Zimmer was busy with another project. I like that the film breaks all kinds of rules and doesn't adhere to expectations. And I hope to see your work, Ben!
Blacks are always the criminals, poor, in the background, asking questions and subordinate in Hollywood movies. Its an agenda. The China film administration is better than Hollywood.
The synthesizer being pushed down in audio by the kick drum is an actual mixing technique known as sidechaining, it's often used in dance music or electronic music. Great work as always Ben!
It’s actually one of the technics that made Daft Punk so inspiring for a whole generation of producers (electronic music or not). The Robots didn’t invent Sidechaining, but they did it so freaking well and so on point that it made the brains of actual connoisseurs implode all over the world. It takes a lot of music (and branding) knowledge to understand how much care and perfectionism these guys have put into every single detail of their craft. To the point of not looking like sane human beings. A bit like Fincher or Nolan: everyone can tell they’re good and enjoy their pieces, but one needs technical knowledge about the craft to understand how good they actually are. It’s funny because besides being worldwide famous and globally recognized beyond their music genre and even beyond their art form (having worked with or for some great movie directors, photographers, Haute Couture brands, etc) Daft Punk are still kind of underrated by the masses.
Watched for the second time recently, and my current favorite moment is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot. When they go back to Oslo later in the film and they are leaving with Kat in the ambulance, you can also see them wheeling her in on the gurney
"Tenet almost refuses to make sense or generate the tension that we might expect and we might need. It's designed for us to observe the temporal pincer maneuver and watch all of it's parts perform and feed into each other" It's an MC Escher drawing made into a movie.
@@mr8883 no, they were obviously hired by two competing siblings in a gravel mining empire to duke it out between themselves perpetually using clones, weird teleportation devices and rockets
It's such a shame how underrated this movie is. I wish more people were open to concepts that might be unorthodox. I find it extremely frustrating explaining to people why I love this movie because people just don't "get it". They have to want to get it in order to do so, and most people probably entered the cinema with an expectation of an action movie like Batman. I watched this movie thrice on cinema, and it just gets better. The details and logic of the concept is extremely well thought through, not to mention that even coming up with a concept like this is astounding. It is literally just time travel but with the requirement to actually physically move to where you want to be instead of jumping there like all other sci-fi.
The average person can't even grasp the concept, that's why tenet failed. I watched it like five times, twice on the cinema. Easily one of the best sci-fy movies ever made.
It's a movie with no compelling characters, no actual theme or philosophical ideas presented, vague main plot that wasn't explored properly, action scenes that were designed to be unintuitive and hard to follow, and yes some times even christopher nolan forgot how inversion works. It's a shit film with a good premise, that's all.
This is literally how my brain works and I loved every second of this movie on my FIRST viewing. I love time travel, I love the future affecting the past, I love people moving through time in the non-traditional way we know. I could watch 100 more movies like this.
I need to save your video link and send it to every mf that says they didnt like tenet, I personally got obsessed with it after first watch and now I have seen the movie like 10 times and never watched a video about it, this is my first, i just wanted to wrap my head around the concept of time in the movie and it was great once you have everything figured out, truly the best movie for me
It's crazy how many times ive rewatched Tenet now, even though after the first viewing I was like 'not nolans best movie'. It's truly a new type of movie experience and gets better after every rewatch. Nolan's ahead of the cinema game, he's doing mind blowing sci fi on a large scale that's based on modern theoretical scientific concepts and problems that have no real answers. Can't wait to see what he does next. p.s really glad someone else was so taken with that specific shot / music. I'm listening to that song in the OST over and over.
That shot hit so hard in the theatre, particularly IMAX. It's a favourite of mine for that reason as well, it's so damn good. And man, it's a bummer how many people write the movie off after one viewing, you literally can't appreciate it only having watched it once, I was so insanely confused after my first go but in a way that made me want to understand. I didn't even start really understanding the mechanics until the fifth watch, and I only figured out the interrogation room and how that worked on like the 8th watch. But it's so damn worth it to rewatch until you understand, then once you do you wonder how you didn't get it. I wish I could wipe my memory and watch it again for the first time.
I like to think that the audience experience of watching Tenet was also kind of a temporal pincer maneuver. On your first watch you move forwards through time, confused by everything happening and just gathering information. Then, on your second watch, you already know what's happened and you're just piecing together the pregathered info from the film. You move from past to future on your first watch then become inverted on the rewatch. Of course it can't really be paradoxical because you can't tell your first watch self what's going to happen, but I like to imagine that Nolan planned for the film to be watched like the characters lived it. Playing with time as a concept at every level.
Calling this movie a masterpiece is silly. It makes no sense at all. Why would a person need to watch a movie 50 times to catch meanings? Meanings that probably have nothing to even do with the movie. If you don't understsnd what on earth a film is showing you, and all you see and hear are images and noise, then it has failed in its mission to tell a story. This means it is a bad film. A movie that can't fulfil that simple criteria, of communucating what it is showing you, means the director lacks the descriptive skill to present what he wants to say. I think Chris Nolan just couldn't translate his vision. That is all. And so it is a bad movie. Simple
@@stactionsmedia3318 ok you're entitled to that opinion but in mine the film does accomplish telling a story by the end, and that story (which is very complex) becomes clearer on a second watch for the reasons I said. If you're going to argue that good films shouldn't need to be re watched for a deeper understanding then I don't know what to say because that's pretty much untrue. It's not as simple as it seems, you just didn't enjoy it and that's perfectly fine. Maybe don't click on a video praising it then
@@chanceseverson Ahhhh I must disagree with you my buddy. A good film needn't be watched twice to understand it. A good film conveys its message, with accuracy and definitive direction the moment you finish it. That is why people get goosebumps. That is why audiences cry, or make gestures of amazement, or gasp at a thrill, or are outraged when the hero dies, or fall in love with the characters. You can watch it a second time, to catch things you missed, yes, but to say you didn't understand it at all, and still give it a pass, in hopes that subsequent viewings might unravel what you just witnessed? Isn't what I think a directors intention is my friend. I think it is somewhat unfair to the audience. It's like you are putting them through an obstacle course, when really they want to be on a roller coaster ride, and be taken along on an interesting, compelling journey. That is the beauty of cinema. It can make the most complex theories....Inceptions dream within a dream, Mementos short term amnesia, Jokers parrallel joke regarding Bruce Wayne, Back to the Futures time travel.....and make them all FUN. Emotionally relatable. That is the magic Tenet is lacking. I don't think it was fun at all. It was like a project you were tasked to solve, with one catch......you aren't told what THE QUESTION TO THE RIDDLE IS...... If you don't know what they are asking of you, how on earth can you solve it, let alone have fun even if you tried.
@@stactionsmedia3318 yeah, you have no idea what you're talking about. If you "understand" a film after seeing it once, it's garbage. This doesn't even have anything to do with Tenet, it's just a fact. Every good film requires investigation, any director would tell you that. Sorry, your opinion is objectively wrong and childishly silly.
@@DetectiveTrupo203 If your.... theory....had anything to go by, this would suggest that the majority of all the good movies that were created since the inception of the movie business; Gone with the wind The sound of music The Godfather Rocky Scarface Goodfellas Jerry McGuire Shindlers list ....all these good movies suffer the same fate of incomprehension, that this mess of a film Tenet has lol. So in your mind, Jerry Mguire, an Oscar nominated movie, that everyone knows is good, about a sports agent played by Tom Cruise, needs to be watched a second, third, and fourth time, for audiences to comprehend what is going on or they will be confused? Hahahaha if you believe this, then you must be a "class A" fool.
Such an epic film you put in words SO well how this movie should be enjoyed! Just the exploration of a crazy cool scifi concept! With cool characters to carry it
I kept pausing the movie my first watch every time I was confused until I understood what was happening. The thought that went into the movie is pretty wild.
Tenet is a movie about a man
Thanks to you both for making this video, it was awesome! 😁
Agreed.
This man is Protagonist, he will fight... an Antagonist. :P
Good to see you here CJ, it’s important to support your less successful siblings
Or is it a man about a movie?
It's funny because I'm black and I never thought about the fact that JDW was "black" as the protagonist because it was never brought up or focused on. It literally had nothing to do with the plot and I love that. Let an artist just be an artist.
This.
That's hilarious because I am also black, and when he brought up JDW being black in the movie, it felt like I just realized it.
"He must not like the look of me"
"The look of you is fine"
It is brought up once.
literally nothing to do with the plot at all. very refreshing. JDW is just as amazing an actor as his father man
@@sheeplastname430 Here's the thing ,there were certain dialog (as the one you mentioned) that would suggest it was there , however because of the scenes in which those dialog were written it leaves room for other interpretations .
The saddest part was that Neil had to pretend he didn't know an old friend the entire time. That always got me.
Because of this comment I had to go and watch the movie.
Oh no……
@@mastah2494 That comment got me really curious, it reminded me of 12 Monkeys, 1 of the characters is trapped in a loop watching himself dying.
@@sabreaion6074 ulala, I havent heard from that movie in a while, Ill watch again today. Great taste there mate
Agreed. I felt the loss when i realized what was inevitiable.
Great analysis!!! But you forgot to mention the subtext: Just like Inception is about filmaking, Tenet is about film watching. The Pincer manouver is just like when you watch a movie for the second time and you already know what's going to happen, and you still feel the same way... This is the underapreciatted genius of Nolan...
Oh, that’s a great point!
HOLY SHIT
You're right, rewatching it is a pincer maneuver!!!
how did you know what was going to happen? Seems like you just assumed it was going to be a happy ending
wtf? daaaamn
Nolan has faith in his audience. I remember the first time I watched this film I knew I wouldn't understand it and I just enjoyed what I could which was still a lot! Films like Tenet and Memento are the best because the more you watch them, the more you appreciate them. The people that get annoyed at Nolan's films because they are too confusing don't understand what makes a good film. If I'm going to pay money to own a movie, it better be worth watching countless times unlike a simple Marvel movie.
He's one of those directors who refuse to dumb down his films for the audience, and I love him for that.
@@RickReasonnzpeople tend to forget that artists make art for themselves first & foremost, they just allow us to experience it.
you shouldnt have to watch a movie multiple times to understand it. Appreciate yes, but understand? no
it costs money and time to watch a movie. If a person has to watch a movie 3 times to understand it, its not a good movie. Shit is expensive. But if people rewatch a movie to appreciate it, then the director did a good job of conveying their vision the first time
Also I love Nolans works, but think Tenet is his weakest.
And no, it doesnt make someone "intellectual" if they "understand" Tenet. No one will be impressed by it. It wont get you a job lol
@@giantqtipz6577 boring take
@@justinmercier293 spoiled kid
''The real Tenet was literally the friend he made along the way'' had me dying
fucking genius hahahaha
I laughed far too loud for 03:45 in the morning.
And let's not forget 5:11 haha
It had Neil dying too 😢
Inception: time goes slow
Interstellar: time goes fast
Tenet: time goes brrr
more like Skrrrt Skrrt
Time goes emiT
Dunkirk: time goes slow, fast, and faster.
@@thomastmc no in Dunkirk, there are 3 events happening at different times at the same time.
@@random-jn8ec Each story takes place over 3 different lengths of time. It seems both the comment and film went over your head.
8:44 - “this film is an intellectual exercise” - thank you for explaining why I FREAKING LOVE THIS MOVIE.
I just don't get the enjoyment of trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense...
All with dialogue that sounds like the actors are under water. Because you know... art.
are you open to a talk about this movie?
The most interesting way I like to watch it is from Pattinson's character viewpoint. Because if you follow his dialogue closely, you realize he is moving in a different direction than our protagonist.
Blacks are always the criminals, poor, in the background, asking questions and subordinate in Hollywood movies. Its an agenda. The China film administration is better than Hollywood.
The best are the scenes with his mom.
Sorry to disagree, but It's not that he's moving in a different direction, it's that he inverted after years (maybe TEN years?) to meet PT back at the beginning so he already knows everything, his entire life is a pincer. Once he un-inverts though that version of Neil is going in the same direction as PT for the duration of the movie except for the pincer battle. We only see the original Neil once, and it's in the opera house in Kiev when he saves PT's life while inverted. One could assume that this is the Neil that went back 10 years (or however long) and that this was the end of that part of his journey backwards, then he un-inverted and a week later met PT in Mumbai (from PT's perspective, for the first time), then continued with him in the same direction(s) for the whole movie. For example, he follows him through the turnstyle both of the next two times, until the battle when they separate. Sorry to be pedantic, it's just that the Neil we're with in the movie is for sure moving in the same direction as the protagonist. FWIW I'm also of the Max=Neil school, it's just too perfect not to fit.
First watch is from The Protag's perspective
Subsequent rewatches are all from Neil's perspective
Exactly! @@eugenefullstack7613 If he wasn't, he'd need a oxygen mask the whole time.
"9 foot Goddess energy" is the perfect way to describe Elizabeth Debicki.
When I heard it I stopped the video to literally shout: "YES THAT'S THE PERFECT DESCRIPTION FOR HER"
Another description was "she looked like a man".
Goddess? Has the bar been that bastardized?
@@cjewe1z that’s the more accurate
@@randomdude189, monstrosity would be accurate. But, then again, that is to be expected from someone that is trying to convince the world that this film is some sort of sophisticated puzzle. The selling point of this film and a lot of Nolan films is the gimmick. If you see past the gimmick there is a very simple story. Having said that, he deserves respect for making spectacular blockbuster films that aim for profundity.
Incredible video that's what I think!
I’m sure you feel like a proud dad, as a father
Awesome
{insert smart comment here}
We don't pay you to think!
James have you stopped paying ben money and now are paying him in confidence
This is one of the best movies ive ever seen because it is just a thought experiment. It feels so different and fresh due to that.
Tenet is an extremely emotional movie, people just don't get invested enough in Neil and PT's relationship on first viewing so they miss it. It's gotta be the only movie in existence where someone has to say goodbye to their best friend that is going to die *before they even become best friends.* Once you make this emotional connection, it's honestly really hard not to cry at the end when PT realizes who Neil truly is.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks this. Tenet hit me in the feels harder than I think any other movie has. Not only because of what you mentioned (which was already incredibly effective on me personally due to the uniqueness), but also because:
1. We realize Neil had to spend the last (months?) he had with his best friend acting as though they were complete strangers. "The end of a beautiful friendship" indeed.
2. PT now has to go hire and befriend Neil *knowing* that doing so has already gotten Neil killed. Especially since Neil got killed *saving PT,* I can't imagine what kind of guilt one would have to harbor the entire time they're friends. Not to mention the dread that would come from knowing exactly when Neil dies.
The final moment with Neil and the Protagonist hit my emotions like a truck. Especially the line about "for me, this is the end of a great friendship. For you, it's only the beginning."
isnt that directly stolen from doctor who? doctor whos wife travels backwards in time
The more you think about Neil, the more emotional the movie becomes, reaching its full emotional climax when you think about Ives saying, "We end our lives. It's the only way to be sure. But as to *when*... maybe that's every man's decision to make for himself."
Neil's decision is to die for his friend. When a gun is pointed at his head, Neil's decision is to step in front of the bullet. That's how he chooses to die.
"For me, this is the end of a beautiful friendship."
like a firetruck???
who cares
@@bullpup1337 It's also 'stolen' from the story of King Arthur, given that Merlyn lives backwards through time. It even has its own TVtropes page - 'Merlin Sickness'
The version of time travel that is used in this movie, the whole "what's happened happens", the whole thing that seems to have turned off a lot of viewers because it brings up the question of free will and a whole "what's the point" perspective on the whole movie, can very easily be explained by one of the most important lines of the movie. When Adam (that's what I call him) talks to the scientist, and she describes how the inverted bullet can jump in your hand, she specifies: "you need to have dropped it". This is crucial. Even if you see the effects before the cause, that cause is inherently free willed. Yeah, you wouldn't see those effects if you didn't do it, but the fact is you did do it, of your own volition, which is why you see the effects. It's not any more complicated than that: you have free will, and you can do things to impact the world. Usually, the effects of those choices are only seen after you make the choice. Nothing changes if the effects come before, you still made the choice. It was still up to you, up to your free will. Because you need to have dropped it.
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Nah. What it highlights is that if there is free will, it's limited to specific moments. The dropping of the bullet might be "free will", but the catching of it, while it's going backwards in time, at that particular moment there is no free will. And I've seen this taken to an extreme in Latin and Southern European cultures. They'll argue most all of the things we go through are fated, but there's little exceptions , that enforces religious devotion, that maybe through the mercy of the Virgin Mary, you may escape your fate, by some miracle, once in a while. It's a sort of psychological survival strategy for people with hard, miserable life, who are often drawn into immoral decisions for the sake of feeding your family. To counter that, in sharp contrast, is the American belief not only in free will, but free will all the time. Every crime is a free choice to be punished, every buck earned is reward for making so many good decisions. Your comment is insightful as far as how audiencesmight feel their belief in free will is threatened, but then you make excuses, explaining that free will can be shoehorned in. And certainly the film invites viewers to think about such question. But basically the pincer manoever itself suggests free will is at least constrained quite a bit, and I'm suggesting audiences are not just threatened, mostly subconsciously, because it goes against mainstream philosophy, but because it might be the truth. Everything is fated, we're just in this for the ride, kinda living behind our eyes in mobile prisons where we might be horrified by what we ourselves do.
That's not what it highlights at all. It's just about going through the motion of having dropped it, basically matching the bullet's reversed arrow of time.
@@tahunuva4254 no, it does both and free will is explicitly addressed here. that scene literally has the protagonist immediately ask "what about free will?" after he "uncatches" the bullet, and the scientist responds "that bullet wouldn't have moved if you hadn't put your hand there. Either way we run the tape, you made it happen". It happens so fast and its like 3 lines but I think most people miss that free will is still apparent even with time inversion
@@3htthexy Oh, that's a good point. But that's going by a very non-standard version of free will (and a kinda based one, as it implies any agent has it, even "inanimate" objects). When most people use the term, they're talking about it as a kind of uncoupling from the causal chain. Like, "I'm not subject to my environment, I'm a free thinker" kind of bs. But "you made it happen" is almost the opposite of that, because it's completely ignoring the question of the protagonist's sovereignty in favour of fitting him into the chain. If the bullet jumped, and he _didn't_ catch it, *that* would be proof of his unfettered will.
I finally saw Tenet yesterday and this is the first video to accurately capture how electrified I felt by watching this movie, and helped me articulate how and why it did. Thank you!!
There is also the fact that the film itself fundamentally requires a temporal pincer movement for it to actually make sense. You have to watch the film and then go back and rewatch it knowing everything you already know from the first viewing in order to piece together a coherent story. Only after having carried out the temporal pincer movement yourself will you have witnessed a coherent plot and movie. Watching it without rewatching it is as good as watching a series of nonsensical and unrelated pictures on a screen because watching it once through is only half of the pincer movement.
Broooo this is really a good take.... Haven't thought this way until now😅
@@sankrut02 Whoah. I didn't realise people had seen this comment. But anyway, I forgot to add that this is why the film is so unpopular. People watched it for the first time and hated it because they only saw half a film but to them it was a full film that simply didn't make sense and was all over the place. And then because they hated it, most people didn't bother to watch it a second time and thus they missed out on genuinely great movie. Such a massive shame.
…..HUH
No amount of explaining this movie as “you just don’t get it” ever outweighs the fact the movie does not make sense, linear or otherwise. Its “smart people cope.” It’s a dumb movie meant to confuse ppl of avg intelligence and draw smart ppl into explaining it away as “too smart.” It’s dumb temporal schlock.
@@ferrarriohh Mate if you think the film still doesn't make sense after it being explained, you're the only one who's dumb enough not to get it😂. It just sounds like you're insecure about not getting the film and now you're taking it out on everyone else that does get it. What's wrong with people enjoying a complex film? Nolan was being ambitious for sure, maybe overly ambitious, but what makes it wrong for him to make intelligent films that make people think? That's his passion and that's just who he is. And people enjoy his films and enjoying it is the whole point. What the hell is wrong with ye?
Ben: This movie is just Christopher Nolan going ‘THE TEMPORAL PINCER MANOEUVRE! That’s fucked up, wouldn’t that be fucked up?!’
Me: *instant subscribe*
The sixth time I watched this film, I turned on subtitles and it really opened up the entire thing for me.
Because Nolan deliberately made the audio trash. What an awful movie...
I didn't realize we went "back to theaters" in 2020. I think that year was a temporal pincer maneuver too.
you couldn't have picked a better subject for a first video, we need more of these!
2 seconds in and already ITS A CLASSIC
COLLAB WHEN
I say two videos ah week and more in the future
I was confused by your comment cause I know this isn't Ben's first video essay. But then I remembered that it was on a different channel.
I hope you've watched his video about Moneyball on Mr Sunday Movie's channel, it's really great...makes me glad he has his own channel now
"The real Tenet was the friends you made along the way..."
That cracked me up so hard. Love it.
me too, wasn't ready for this one XD
The real friends was the Tenet you made along the way.
The real tenet is the new friends you already had.
@@peteryouth what in the fuck.........I am dying
@@peteryouth the real tenet is the friend he has
If it was possible, I would just sit and watch this movie on a continuous loop. Two years later, prepping for Oppenheimer, I have found myself deep diving into Tenet analyses like this one once again. I saw it 3 times in the cinema and countless time since. If it was possible I would just sit and watch this movie on a continuous loop.
It was interesting to rewatch and notice the scene where they talk about Oppenheimer in Tenet, and how "the woman" who created "the algorithm" is essentially her generation's Oppenheimer. It's as if we saw the seed of Nolan's own idea to make his latest film without realising. And it's also like Oppenheimer is a prequel to tenet!
I see what you did there with the first and last sentence of your comment, lol
My absolute favorite detail and trick nolan plays on us is with neil. The knowledge he’s privvy to really makes it seem like hes a double agent, and the film naturally leads you to believe that. What a marvel of a film
One of the really interesting things about the movie is that we never find out who the people from the future who want to use the algorithm are. It could easily be the characters in the film, if they changed their minds later on!
If you guys never notice that Neil was basically the main plot
@@Nation_of_Imagination not upon first viewing.
@@Nation_of_Imagination Neil's entire life is a pincer maneuver. It gets even gnarlier if you assume he is also Max (it's arguable, but I do).
JDW’s blackness having no thematic reasoning is such an underrated point
that this is underrated makes it actually overrated if you think twice about it
@@Charizardlison An underrated/overrated pincer maneuver.
@@TheMusicalFruit 🤣
interracial tension between him and the guys wife
It used to be that way in the 70s and 80s before universities became completely corrupted by an ideological cult
Thank you for making this video specifically for me
Your TENET hype's never going to end, is it?
(Don't blame you, Jack ;)
Awesome job on this. One of the ways I've rewatched is looking for the red vs. blue clues. There is SO much of it all over the movie- another level of genius filmmaking and production/costume design. In this scene specifically, as the timelines merge you can visually see the red and blue vehicles merge onto the same timeline (and street) as well. I hope other people find this moment as SWEET as I do.
You guys are really not that smart, and call "genius' anything that is thrown at you, in red vs blue team do you even know who or what they are fighting? no, you never see them, they are never on the screen, never explained or introduced, u just see things blowing and unblowing without knowing who, why or what the red or blue team is fighting in two different direction of time, whole thing doesn't make sense.
I cant believe people dont love this movie or appreciate it.
I was emotionally unfulfilled after my first viewing of tenet because there was no pulling of my heart strings that Inception has with Cob’s wife. On my second viewing I realized the emotion is subliminal between Washington and Pattinson’s friendship. Imagine finding out that your friend is really a future friend that you mentor and he will eventually mentor you again in this constant overlapping of time like the Dalai lama and Panchen Lama. I think that’s why Pattinson is drunk at their first meeting, he’s emotionally preparing for seeing his old mentor for the “first” time.
I realised on my second viewing how affecting was the last talk between these two. Pattinson knows he must return an die, Washington just realises it too, and he knows that he can't do (and MUSTN'T DO) anything about it and it almost brings tears to his eyes (and to my eyes as well).
Something about the idea of him needing to drink to handle meeting the Protagonist for the "first" time just hits me in the most heartbreaking way 🥺
I can't be the only one thinking that the kid at the end is a younger version of Neil. (Somebody came up with the idea that "Max" was short for "Maximillien" and if so, "Neil" is the last four letter's of Max's name backwards.)
@@eddiejc1 this^!!!
There is no emotion in that movie. It's a bad action movie overlayed with techno mumbo jumbo
In case no one has mentioned it, JDW's physicality as an actor is probably tied to his background as an NFL RB prospect.
Loved him in ballers glad he’s getting his big break
This is Denzel Washingtons son right
@@mittendemon4493 Yes
whaa. I didn't know that
I think I’ve watched this film 30 times this year alone. I absolutely love it so much.
One of the greatest realizations I had is that we are experiencing everything for the first time, just as the protagonist is. I appreciated JDW’s performance so much more when I realized every conversation, situation, experience, everything, he was experiencing it for the first time as the protagonist. I mean, the movie starts with him having just enough knowledge at the opera house. He later just gets in a car and hits go on the gps. It’s throughout the whole film and he did such a great job acting like his character is just trying to put the pieces together, LIKE US!
Tenet was like the final exam for some Chris Nolan masters degree that we've all been studying for since Memento.
This video helped me realize that I actually like Tenet
I love this video because I don’t like tenet but I completely understand why it works for him.
Now thats a temporal pincer movement
You alreeady did.
This totally doesn't make you sound like a person that is easily swayed. /s
@@thetechsite9619 Never learn from other people kiddo. Never change your opinion, doesn't matter how much the new details make sense. Stay ignorant. /s
One of my favorite things about the temporal pincer is how the protagonist doesn't know really anything in the beginning, but as it turns out he's the temporal pincer head honcho and the reason the plot is happening
at the begging he knows nothing, but at the end he knows everything...which means at the beginning, he knows everything...he just doesn't know it yet
@@arogueburrito *Mind-boggling*
@@arogueburrito He truly is the protagonist
Bro was lost taking orders from himself 😂
Well what’s cool about it is that he experiences the events. Commits himself to ensuring that the events continue to unfold that way. Then sends a team to move backwards in time with all of the information he has. Sends another team to ensure that he himself is committed to the mission so that a loop is created to preserve time as it is.
Just watched this in the imax rerelease. So fun. I actually love how the protagonist doesnt have a back story. To me it like a POV almost like playable character in a video game.
I loved it.
This first week it streamed,
I probably watched 5xs.
Your enthusiasm is contagious!
Blacks are always the criminals, poor, in the background, asking questions and subordinate in Hollywood movies. Its an agenda. The China film administration is better than Hollywood. Hollwood really Hates Black on Blacks Love.
The movie title “TENET”, is the TEN minutes temporal pincer movement, both TEN forward and backward met.
Yo
Nice try, but nope. TeneT is a palindrome, it's spelt the same way forwards as it is backwards. That's it.
I like that!
@@j.f.l.bousquet1998 why is it called Tenet then
@@daniellaniganohara2456 bruh he already answered
In the word of a Southern accented James Bond: "Makes no goddamed sense, compels me tho".
Lmao
🤣🤣
Benoit Blanc
@@dennisreynolds6196 LMAO yes
Calling this movie a masterpiece is silly. It makes no sense at all. Why would a person need to watch a movie 50 times to catch meanings? Meanings that probably have nothing to even do with the movie. If you don't understsnd what on earth a film is showing you, and all you see and hear are images and noise, then it has failed in its mission to tell a story. This means it is a bad film. A movie that can't fulfil that simple criteria, of communucating what it is showing you, means the director lacks the descriptive skill to present what he wants to say. I think Chris Nolan just couldn't translate his vision. That is all. And so it is a bad movie. Simple..
A pure masterpiece... about something mind bending... time travel.
Imagine Nolan making a film about the quantum mechanics or holographic universe ...man.
THANK YOU!!! That timeline you put up I literally made it in my head it was so amazing to see. I love this film. Amazing work!
Well... I'm watching Tenet again tonight. And Chef.
is Chef worth the watch? i dont really care for Jon Favreau
@@dorianjareth9198 a predictable fairytale movie but is a feel good one. If you're having a bad day, go for it. I also watch weird movies but they make me feel good, like garden state on a gloomy monsoon day
@@dorianjareth9198 it’s a fun movie, worth at least one watch. Nothing too deep, just a good detox movie if you’ve been watching heavy stuff
If nothing else, this video reignited my boyish love for firetrucks.
FIRETRUCKS FUCKING ROCK
FUCK YEAH FIRETRUCKS RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fuck yeah, go fire trucks! They really fuck up those fires !
Lol
YESS!!!😅
"Like chaos firmly under control." 😢 *sniffs* That was beautiful.
Tenet is a two piece puzzle with blunt edged - you have minimal amount of exposition and every second, every glance counts
Watched it 5 times and loved every one of them, so many details that you get pick up on re-watching. It's a Masterpiece.
may i ask you a question about the inverted bullets? i rewatched the movie yesterday and i just can't wrap my head around how the inversion works. i really like the idea of the movie but i feel like a lot of small things just don't make any sense and it kinda ruins it for me. for example, before the inverted fight at the oslo airport takes place, the protagonist already sees bullet holes in the window. but HOW did they get there?? from his perspective the fight hasn't taken place yet..from his future self's perspective the fight is already over, but...like...you know what i mean?? is it meant to not make any sense? i just find it hard to like the movie if it's not even explained how the bullet holes can already be there if the past protagonist hasn't been in the fight yet. i feel like i might be thinking too much about it or that im just too stupid to get it..
@@myrk_ you're not stupid at all, these are legitimate questions, and don't beat yourself because you're not thinking about time reversal, that's exactly why I loved the concept, it breaks your mind when you try to make sense of it, so don't, just accept it ;) but - of you're really into understanding it, there are great explanations out there.
@@myrk_ it's going to confuse you even more if I'll try to explain it in text without drawings but the explanation goes like so: inverted bullets were shot in the inverted future and they "go back" into the gun in the normal (non inverted) future.
Same as - normal objects just existing in the inverted world are going into the past, it's a passive ability of this space.
When you take objects from the inverted plain into the normal plain it seems as if they go back, but actually, from their perspective - it's their 'inverted' future, which from the perspective of the normal plain would look like reverse existence.
It really does make sense, but only if you start thinking about everything with a temporal-vector for a lack of a better term. Hope I could help lol
@@burgulize thanks for the encouraging words xd i think i might just have to rewatch it again but this time have a pen and paper with me..i know that what you're saying defo makes sense, but i'm racking my brain here haha i do appreciate it though!
"9 foot goddess energy" is not a term I was expecting to hear today
So accurate lol
I've always noted this about Tenet and JDWs performance. JDW actually feels AGGRESSIVE. When he moves he moves with purpose, he does everything as efficiently and as best as he can and it was the first movie I've ever seen that actually drew me to the leads MOVEMENT more than anything, he's just a beast.
Man was denied his hot sauce!!
He really is a brilliant fucking actor. I am finding myself drawn more and more to films with less dialogue and more non-dialogue based acting. I saw JDW in Black Klansman, and, although his approach feels similar (that "aggression" as you call it), he certainly picks his moments, so to speak, very well. I am stoked to see him in more traditional movie roles (I could not get through the writing in that one he did with Zendaya.)
Damn dude well put! I definitely had a similar thought; a lot of JDW’s action has an ‘explosive’ quality - especially the kitchen fight - where you can tell he’s sizing everything up and then he goes HAM for maximum effect
I really liked that about the first Bourne movie, conservation of movement and efficacy.
True, but - unfortunately - his facial expressions don't reflect that. He often comes off as a wide-eyed, fish-out-of-water protagonist, even when it doesn't suit the scene.
The video was awesome!!! One of the best video essays I have ever seen. I have watched tenet now a couple times and although I already liked the movie, your essay gave me a new insight that makes me appreciate it even more! Thanks man!
Just rewatched Tenet for the fourth time, this time in IMAX and this video is perfect. I watched this after the last time I watched Tenet and you made all the pieces come together for the first time. Having that knowledge going into this viewing truly made me realize that this movie is a MASTERPIECE. Great video.
"I'm only about 37% stupid" is a mood I can understand 😆
it should be 31% stupid and 69% smart
This video of Tenet perfectly described my experience with tenet, “I don’t know what’s going on, it I love it!”
For me it was “I don’t know what’s going on and I can’t stand it”
Since Nolan gained traction, there has been a very noticeable nudge in his very excellent work. Always excited about his next engagement...
Brilliant essay!
I don’t bother trying to understand this movie because I know that my future self understands it perfectly well because he’s seen it more times than me
The greatest thing about this movie to me is realizing that in the end, the protagonist probably realized he’ll have an ally in the future of whom he *KNOWS* he can trust him because he already knows him and he already knows that he’ll be saved by him. Because let’s face it, how intensely reassuring would it be to know, with 100% certainty, you can trust a *”stranger”* you’ve only just met? To have someone you’ve only known for a couple of weeks making you feel like you’ve known him for more than a decade…
and he sent his friend to be an ally of his past.
That is really interesting when you compare it to a series like Counterpart. In counterpart, which deals with parallel dimensions instead of time travel, the central tenet (heh) seems to be that multiple versions of the same person would inevitably go to war if their timelines didn't progress equally (ie a man's wife dies, but he knows she is alive and well in another dimension with his counterpart. So, rather than accepting her death, he attempts to go to the other world and replace his doppelganger).
I HAVE BEEN YELLING AT BEN SINCE THE MONEYBALL VIDEO TO START A CHANNEL, LETS FUCKING GO DUDE.
this is one of the best reviews i've seen of anything. well done.
Personally think that the final Neil/Protagonist scene is one of the more emotionally engaging and interesting scenes in his career along with interstellar and the cillian murphy scene in inception
the most outside interstellar for me, it's true love in a brotherly way
@@uchihagaeshi1169 word
makes me tear up everytime
“John David Washington doesn’t bring any baggage.”
To be fair, nobody noticed that the British spec ops guy with a beard was kick-ass.
COWBOY SHIT
I did BUT he has done a lot of movies as a badass so wasn’t baggage to me
Crazy how Aaron Taylor Johnson as Ives looks nothing like he did in Kick-Ass
This is the best movie review I have ever seen in my life and also very educational because to this day I still don’t know what the movie was about
I just watched this movie and im blown away what a FUCKING GREAT MOVIE
I Loved this film, but then again I watched it on HBO Max with subtitles on and the ability to rewind whenever something was too wtf to grasp in real time. The ability to go back in time and rewind the movie was clutch, as I did a temporal pincer maneuver of my own in trying to understand this film.
Yeah I really hated the film because I watched it in the cinema and the sound mixing was soo god awful I couldn't understand what they were saying enough to only understand what was going on a very superficial level.
@@impyrobot I've seen some analysis of the film on here talking the sound mixing and after seeing that, it's understandable and it actually fit in well when you see it at that perspective
I did exactly this.
“Too wtf to grasp in real time…” - ive never heard a more perfect alternate expression for the term “confused”
This movie is extremely insulting to the intellect. It's contrived nonsense. Pattinson was great though.
The experience of Tenet in a nutshell: I have no idea wtf just happened but goddamn it was cool as shit.
Then watch Primer. When I finally thought "wait a second, this is starting to make sense" the end credits began to roll. 😂
It's the best movie about time travel I've seen (not counting Tenet), and it had a ridiculously low budget. And the acting was also great for a bunch of amateurs. Don't worry if you understand very little on your first watch, this is normal, do some research online before watching it again if you want, download a timeline chart, whatever you might think will help you.
i loved how the entire film can be fractally grouped in forward-backward pairs
first half is forward, second half is backwards (while moving the story forwards).
then of the second half the first half of that is forward, and the second half backward
and so it goes smaller and smaller until we reach the raid scene which again works forward to the midpoint and then backwards from there. all the while returning to the very beginning of the whole movie.
to have this type of temporal structure and be able to follow it is extremely exciting.
i noticed the fractal temporal structure about 2/3 into the movie, and while i understood it, it was still a pleasure to watch it unfold. like a virtuoso violinist performing before your eyes.
This was such a witty movie essay, but also done so very well 😂😂 I am a big Tenet fan and still working to understand it to the fullest so I love hearing other perspectives on the film and have it describe in different ways, very well done!
I loved the part where the protagonist fights himself for the second time, and the lead up to all of that is awesome. I may not have all of the pieces in place with the whole timeline, but this movie is my favorite because it was a mindfuck and I love it for that.
When I watched it the first time, I was expecting the inverted soldier to be one of Sator’s henchman as I was still wrapping my head around the mechanics of inversion. When he got blown through the shutter door and right into the hands of his past self, it was the biggest jaw drop I’d ever gotten from a movie.
@@richos07 i watched this first time, high as a giraffes vagina, i dont think ive ever been so flabbergasted
The first time you watch it you're seeing it through the eyes of the Protagonist, the second time you're seeing it through Neils eyes. The Protagonist doesn't know what's going to happen in his future, he doesn't know if the bomb is gonna go off and neither do we, its a new experience to us and we're just as confused as the Protagonist. But when we watch it the second time we know how the movie plays out and so does Niel, he knows the bomb isn't going to go off or he wouldn't be there to stop it, and we know the bomb won't go off because we've seen the end of the film before, in a way Niel has seen the end of the film and he's experiencing it exactly as we are, he's an actor playing a role as you say.
We might feel like this movie has no stakes when we understand it, but isn't that true of every movie? Once you've finished a movie you know how it ends, but you still rewatch it because of the ride. In Tenets case there were never any stakes in the first place, but as we're watching we feel that there are, until in the end its revieled that there were never any stakes in the first place. You might feel kinda cheated, but the point of the movie is how you see it in your perspective.
You hit the mail on the head with this one. Tenet absolutely has to be watched twice to fully appreciate what’s going on.
The first time I watched it I was ambivalent towards it, the second time I watched, I was riveted. This is an excellent film, I wish more people gave it that much needed second viewing.
@@danilejai7801 It’s a bit like The Prestige, once you know how the trick works you see the movie completely differently. You realize you weren’t watching closely, like you were told to in the beginning. Nolan is the GOAT.
@@the5thgeneral That movie was better than tenet.
You're giving me way too much credit in knowing what was going to happen the 2nd time watching it.
JDW absolutely killed this role. The fight scenes and gun scenes were really well done.
I actually enjoyed it during my first watch, i want to rewatch it many more times fr.
To explain the temporal pincer, we first have to understand parallel universes…
Hey, TimTom! (first by the way lol)
Except whether parallel universes exist, has never been proven.
Not really.
Its not about parallel universe its about time reversing concept. There were two timelines moving simultaneously but in opposite directions.
Actually you don't at all, TENNET's concept is different from the (in my opinion) overused, just as unbelievable and nonsensical concept that is parallel universes. It's all bs time only goes in one direction.
my favorite moment/easter egg, and it's not until you watch it a second time, was when Neil and the protagonist first meet in the hotel lobby in Mumbai. Neil orders another vodka tonic and orders a diet coke for the protagonist. The protagonist tells Neil, "FYI i prefer soda water" then Neil smirks and says "No, you don't"
I also love how the music in that scene feels kinda ‘nostalgic’ if thats the right word. It doesnt seem to match the idea of their first meeting, but of course its because this is a reunion
@@watchdominion00 YES!!! It's the Neil's theme music in the movie, it is nostalgic all the time whenever his scenes come and it only makes sense because for him everything is just revisiting old times! :'D
Yeah, I remember that, that’s when he meets Neil for the first time, but Neil has known him for so much longer
Did you notice when they “met” in the theater opening scene? During the raid and ensuing gun battle, an unknown agent shoots one of the immediate threats to the protagonist and promptly turns and walks away, like he had just shown up to shoot that one guy. Notice his backpack as he turns to leave.
@@ReadABookAndLearn That was actually the last guy he shot. On a third watch, I realized Neil was the one picking key shooters off in the background. He shoots 2+ people chasing Protag, so he can successfully collect the bombs.
I like the mention you made about puzzles early on, because it suddenly clicked in my brain: Nolan basically made a film that frustrates people because it's not like most movies, which are essentially puzzle that show the solution on the box; Tenet is a puzzle that you only understand as it's put together, and our stand-in (JDW) is a self-aware puzzle piece that spends the journey discovering where he fits, and the broader picture along with us.
Maybe that's not what Nolan intended, but I think it's very cool; I watch enough movies that I don't often rewatch them, and I appreciate Nolan's craftmanship in making films absolutely worth returning to.
This movie is like a visual rubics cube. The sound of one hand clapping. A 5th dimensional depiction on a 2D piece of paper. A future's past presenting presently. A known unknown. The answer to an oxymoron. Etc. Etc.
This movie sounds like a really good book.
I concur...
And that book is called The Peripheral by William Gibson.
Not exactly, but sort of.
I wish they would make a book out of it
An interesting detail of that scene Ben loves: the Protagonist is on the red fire truck as it merges into traffic that has a couple of blue trucks on it. I’m probably reading too much into it but it’s like the two teams coming together as part of the overall temporal pincer movie
Nice
Yes, Nolan uses blue and red before making it explicit for the final battle
Aaaaaah well spotted. And I am dumb
Also women in red coat before the meeting 14:33 - its intentional
The whole movie has this blue red color coding clues
On the second movie watch it is very noticeable from the very beginning
For small example bag with artefact in Opera is Blue
balaclava mask on "terrorists leader" is clearly Red
- and if it seems random - look at all colors and objects in each scene
all colors dimmed but some specific things sometime has color accent
I doubt you're reading too much into it. Knowing Nolan, even the most minute detail is probably intentional
JDW in Tenet made me forget his dad was Denzel but now you realize when your dad is the Equalizer, ofc you’re the Protagonist and run Tenet! 🤘🏽
Great video, dunno why it only just popped up but stellar work, thank you
"And at the end of this grand experiment, Travis Scott says..."
I lost a lung laughing
SKRRT SKRRT
Someone’s gonna have to essplain dis one out for me…
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
This was an INCREDIBLE analysis. For what it's worth, the sweeping fades that are played during the truck heist are created by reversing a note into itself. The synths are played backward, then forward. The soundtrack is a temporal paradox.
I didnt care for tenet, and something nerd writer did reminded me why. "When spectacle eclipses story"
@@DegenerateSpeculator Neil Degrasse? Why does he always say that
This does not make it a good movie. The story is bullshit, the characters and their motivations is bullshit. Therefore, the whole movie is bullhit. It's easy.
At the end, the reversed Blue Team action sequences have a reversed music soundtrack
I think you like the word "temporal" more than you understand the word "paradox"
Ended up here based on auto play; this is the best breakdown of Tenet i’ve seen and man have I seen a few lol. Love what you said about JDW, didn’t even think about why he might’ve been cast but he’s one of best in the game like his dad was after Training Day.
Dude, this was a great breakdown. Tenet is a magic trick that I don’t want to know how it’s done. Just sit back and enjoy the mind boggling
Finally someone who appreciated this movie as much as me. I've seen it 10 times now.
I saw it 16 times in theatres, it's too damn good. And looks absolutely spectacular in Laser IMAX.
I've lost count because I would literally watch it going to sleep, keep it on in the background, listen to the score while working out. Tenet is more for me then other movies it's not something I've been able to put into words but this video calling it a game seems appropriate. I hope more people interact with this movie the way I have and there can be more high budget interactive movie mind puzels in the future.
@@natf7942 if you would have seen it in a regular theatre you wouldn't have been able to hear shit
@@bitchface235 I saw it in a regular theatre once and heard things well enough.
"I've seen it 10 times now"
Obviously, that's how many times you've gotta watch it to understand whats going on!
Joking...I liked it too, but I had to watch it twice to pick up what I missed the first time, where as Interstellar and Inception I got instantly. Its the only thing that bummed me out a little.
I remember being super hyped for this movie when I watched it, the first half was generally disappointing to me but the second half was phenomenal. Then I rewatched it and it became one of my favorites from start to finish. At this point, I think I have seen it 7 times and it never gets old
FULL AGREE
For me it was the complete opposite. Loved the first half, confused by the second but totally in awe. It should've been simplified a little imo.
@@Sujay95 That's a bit hard to achieve here I think. Perhaps the plot might've been a bit too long for the movie, and it's already 2 and a half hours long. I've watched it 5 times I think, needed to watch the second time to actually connect all the dots.
I believe it to be a deliberate act by Christoper Nolan that the film needs be watched multiple times in order to observe, and absorb all the layers of pardox happening.
Almost like red and blue team, your brain is required to already know what's going to happen, in order to see what you missed last time.
@@stonedvillain79 honestly that's not a good thing. If you're required to watch a movie several times just to understand the basic plot, then that's a major flaw in my eyes.
Especially since people were saying (at the time this was coming to theaters) that this movie would need to be good to keep theaters alive.
Thankfully this movies plot didnt kill off theater because of other easily understood movies coming out lol.
Thank you for making this because I love this movie and it frustrates me that people ask so many questions and don't just watch and enjoy it for what it is. Like it was so crazy that I had to watch it at least 2 3 times. It's a dope movie just stop overthinking it and watch it
Absolutely loved this film from the first time I watched it. I love JDW and his understated, yet powerful presence and acting. I hope to see his future work. I loved the score and was kind of pleased that Hans Zimmer was busy with another project. I like that the film breaks all kinds of rules and doesn't adhere to expectations. And I hope to see your work, Ben!
Blacks are always the criminals, poor, in the background, asking questions and subordinate in Hollywood movies. Its an agenda. The China film administration is better than Hollywood.
Ditto to all of the above 😊
Finally I can relate to "the ferocity of JDW's movement". I was absolutely charmed and staggered by that stuff
The synthesizer being pushed down in audio by the kick drum is an actual mixing technique known as sidechaining, it's often used in dance music or electronic music. Great work as always Ben!
He probably knew that, considering his latest track is a very well made electronic track, likely he just didn't wanna get incredibly technical lol
I'm pretty sure the base sound is actually orchestral strings played backwards?
It’s actually one of the technics that made Daft Punk so inspiring for a whole generation of producers (electronic music or not).
The Robots didn’t invent Sidechaining, but they did it so freaking well and so on point that it made the brains of actual connoisseurs implode all over the world.
It takes a lot of music (and branding) knowledge to understand how much care and perfectionism these guys have put into every single detail of their craft.
To the point of not looking like sane human beings.
A bit like Fincher or Nolan: everyone can tell they’re good and enjoy their pieces, but one needs technical knowledge about the craft to understand how good they actually are.
It’s funny because besides being worldwide famous and globally recognized beyond their music genre and even beyond their art form (having worked with or for some great movie directors, photographers, Haute Couture brands, etc) Daft Punk are still kind of underrated by the masses.
@@GuillaumeRx AMEN
I’ve been wondering how this has been done for years, thanks for finally helping me put a term to it!
Watched for the second time recently, and my current favorite moment is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot. When they go back to Oslo later in the film and they are leaving with Kat in the ambulance, you can also see them wheeling her in on the gurney
ngl, subbing before watching the full video cause of CJ connection. Glad I subbed after finishing the video.
"Tenet almost refuses to make sense or generate the tension that we might expect and we might need. It's designed for us to observe the temporal pincer maneuver and watch all of it's parts perform and feed into each other"
It's an MC Escher drawing made into a movie.
Only two films I know have done that; The Fountain and Tenet.
Til this day, I have not seen more than 2 soldiers from Andrei Sator's army. Red team & blue team pretty much running & shooting at No one.
@@mr8883 no, they were obviously hired by two competing siblings in a gravel mining empire to duke it out between themselves perpetually using clones, weird teleportation devices and rockets
It's such a shame how underrated this movie is. I wish more people were open to concepts that might be unorthodox. I find it extremely frustrating explaining to people why I love this movie because people just don't "get it". They have to want to get it in order to do so, and most people probably entered the cinema with an expectation of an action movie like Batman.
I watched this movie thrice on cinema, and it just gets better. The details and logic of the concept is extremely well thought through, not to mention that even coming up with a concept like this is astounding. It is literally just time travel but with the requirement to actually physically move to where you want to be instead of jumping there like all other sci-fi.
Correct: sometimes it’s about the mystery not the answer
The average person can't even grasp the concept, that's why tenet failed. I watched it like five times, twice on the cinema. Easily one of the best sci-fy movies ever made.
It's a movie with no compelling characters, no actual theme or philosophical ideas presented, vague main plot that wasn't explored properly, action scenes that were designed to be unintuitive and hard to follow, and yes some times even christopher nolan forgot how inversion works. It's a shit film with a good premise, that's all.
This is literally how my brain works and I loved every second of this movie on my FIRST viewing. I love time travel, I love the future affecting the past, I love people moving through time in the non-traditional way we know. I could watch 100 more movies like this.
I need to save your video link and send it to every mf that says they didnt like tenet, I personally got obsessed with it after first watch and now I have seen the movie like 10 times and never watched a video about it, this is my first, i just wanted to wrap my head around the concept of time in the movie and it was great once you have everything figured out, truly the best movie for me
It's crazy how many times ive rewatched Tenet now, even though after the first viewing I was like 'not nolans best movie'. It's truly a new type of movie experience and gets better after every rewatch. Nolan's ahead of the cinema game, he's doing mind blowing sci fi on a large scale that's based on modern theoretical scientific concepts and problems that have no real answers.
Can't wait to see what he does next.
p.s really glad someone else was so taken with that specific shot / music. I'm listening to that song in the OST over and over.
That shot hit so hard in the theatre, particularly IMAX. It's a favourite of mine for that reason as well, it's so damn good.
And man, it's a bummer how many people write the movie off after one viewing, you literally can't appreciate it only having watched it once, I was so insanely confused after my first go but in a way that made me want to understand.
I didn't even start really understanding the mechanics until the fifth watch, and I only figured out the interrogation room and how that worked on like the 8th watch. But it's so damn worth it to rewatch until you understand, then once you do you wonder how you didn't get it. I wish I could wipe my memory and watch it again for the first time.
I like to think that the audience experience of watching Tenet was also kind of a temporal pincer maneuver. On your first watch you move forwards through time, confused by everything happening and just gathering information. Then, on your second watch, you already know what's happened and you're just piecing together the pregathered info from the film. You move from past to future on your first watch then become inverted on the rewatch. Of course it can't really be paradoxical because you can't tell your first watch self what's going to happen, but I like to imagine that Nolan planned for the film to be watched like the characters lived it. Playing with time as a concept at every level.
Calling this movie a masterpiece is silly. It makes no sense at all. Why would a person need to watch a movie 50 times to catch meanings? Meanings that probably have nothing to even do with the movie. If you don't understsnd what on earth a film is showing you, and all you see and hear are images and noise, then it has failed in its mission to tell a story. This means it is a bad film. A movie that can't fulfil that simple criteria, of communucating what it is showing you, means the director lacks the descriptive skill to present what he wants to say. I think Chris Nolan just couldn't translate his vision. That is all. And so it is a bad movie. Simple
@@stactionsmedia3318 ok you're entitled to that opinion but in mine the film does accomplish telling a story by the end, and that story (which is very complex) becomes clearer on a second watch for the reasons I said. If you're going to argue that good films shouldn't need to be re watched for a deeper understanding then I don't know what to say because that's pretty much untrue. It's not as simple as it seems, you just didn't enjoy it and that's perfectly fine. Maybe don't click on a video praising it then
@@chanceseverson
Ahhhh I must disagree with you my buddy. A good film needn't be watched twice to understand it. A good film conveys its message, with accuracy and definitive direction the moment you finish it. That is why people get goosebumps. That is why audiences cry, or make gestures of amazement, or gasp at a thrill, or are outraged when the hero dies, or fall in love with the characters. You can watch it a second time, to catch things you missed, yes, but to say you didn't understand it at all, and still give it a pass, in hopes that subsequent viewings might unravel what you just witnessed? Isn't what I think a directors intention is my friend.
I think it is somewhat unfair to the audience. It's like you are putting them through an obstacle course, when really they want to be on a roller coaster ride, and be taken along on an interesting, compelling journey.
That is the beauty of cinema.
It can make the most complex theories....Inceptions dream within a dream, Mementos short term amnesia, Jokers parrallel joke regarding Bruce Wayne, Back to the Futures time travel.....and make them all FUN. Emotionally relatable.
That is the magic Tenet is lacking. I don't think it was fun at all. It was like a project you were tasked to solve, with one catch......you aren't told what THE QUESTION TO THE RIDDLE IS......
If you don't know what they are asking of you, how on earth can you solve it, let alone have fun even if you tried.
@@stactionsmedia3318 yeah, you have no idea what you're talking about. If you "understand" a film after seeing it once, it's garbage. This doesn't even have anything to do with Tenet, it's just a fact. Every good film requires investigation, any director would tell you that. Sorry, your opinion is objectively wrong and childishly silly.
@@DetectiveTrupo203 If your.... theory....had anything to go by, this would suggest that the majority of all the good movies that were created since the inception of the movie business;
Gone with the wind
The sound of music
The Godfather
Rocky
Scarface
Goodfellas
Jerry McGuire
Shindlers list
....all these good movies suffer the same fate of incomprehension, that this mess of a film Tenet has lol. So in your mind, Jerry Mguire, an Oscar nominated movie, that everyone knows is good, about a sports agent played by Tom Cruise, needs to be watched a second, third, and fourth time, for audiences to comprehend what is going on or they will be confused? Hahahaha if you believe this, then you must be a "class A" fool.
The thing I like about videos like this is the interest and passion of the author / producer.
Such an epic film you put in words SO well how this movie should be enjoyed! Just the exploration of a crazy cool scifi concept! With cool characters to carry it
Washington's performance was one of best parts of the movie. I didn't realize he was Denzel's son
It was literally the worst part, so boring and devoid of any character. Robert Pattinson however was insanely phenomenal.
You kidding me? Sounds exactly like him.
You should watch Blackkklansman, he's even better in that
People with 0 criteria lol. This guy is like Ben affleck they dont act they are just themselves, crappy actors tbh
@@DashzRight stop 🤣 he wasn't acting as himself
The cinematography of this movie is so perfect.
I kept pausing the movie my first watch every time I was confused until I understood what was happening. The thought that went into the movie is pretty wild.
Watching this review made me appreciate the movie more than I did before. Great review. Good job!
Great Essay, Ben. Looking forward to more!
Ami!!
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