Finally watched Tenet. After all the hype and discussion on Reddit when it was released, I was expecting some sort of neigh-on impenetrable profound piece of cinema, but it's just Primer with action sequences.
That's a good take, I hadn't thought of comparing it to Primer. In Primer, it's clear Shane Carruth thought out all the implications of his time travel system. I don't get that feeling from Tenet, where it feels like Nolan thought it would be cool and didn't go further. What you end up with is a movie that's fun while you're watching it but falls apart once it's over and you think about it for more then 5 minutes.
The scene I think is the most egregious is the air terminal fight. It's a cool idea in theory but a fist fight between two individuals going in opposite directions in time would immediately result in a paradox. It's hard to explain but it essentially boils down to the fact that both fighters are reacting to their opponents reaction to the move they're about to make.
I want to watch it again. Maybe going in not expecting certain things to happen that drives a story. Like you know, character motivation.
But to watch it like it’s a visual jigsaw puzzle.
I don't really understand why people act like I'm bullshitting when I say it wasn't confusing. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't linear, but I understood the basic concept.
There are parts that go "forwards" in time and there are parts that go "backwards" in time and the streams of events influence each other when they meet. The relative perception of the characters is that all events go "forwards". Some characters pass through the macguffin machine and their flow starts going backwards, and they influence themselves in both directions. Past this, you just have to watch the story happen.
The only confusing thing about the movie is the visuals. We're not exactly used to watching shit happen backwards so shit looks weird sometimes. The big fight with a ton of soldiers was probably the worst at that.
Patrick Willems made a good video about Tenet. He calls it a Vibes Movie, in his explanation all the secret agent movies, like Bond, Mission Impossible, are vibes movies where the plot is actually meaningless. Tenet ups this to eleven. IMHO Nolan is a serial perpetrator of over his own head concepts, but I nevertheless like his movies because the're at least not franchises.
