The film is so revealing of boomer/reactionary anxieties about the future. It's literally about protecting the present order at all costs, even if that means consigning the future to disaster

  • sunneonix [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    there are like a dozen dramatic or action sequences before the finale, so you're completely wrong. Dominoes are also awesome to watch fall, and it was awesome at the end where you watch the super long synchronized thing happen twice in different directions. just the concept of having a military maneuver where the forces are simultaneously inserting and withdrawing is worth the set piece. btw, that's basically the structure of a movie: Introduction, development, Climax, re-encapsulation, coda. you could say the same thing about Jin Roh or Parasite or Come and See, honestly "Wow, the movie doesn't have stuff happen until it does"

    • WalterBongjammin [they/them,comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I was being hyperbolic about the film's structure, but I broadly think that my description is accurate. Obviously, things happen during the earlier parts of the film, but overall I found it to be cold and mechanical. My feeling watching it was that the film is more interested in its structural complexity than in its dramatic content, with the result that its characters feel like the component parts of a machine rather than genuine characters. I do find that interesting on one level, but I also think that it's kind of dull. Particularly as it isn't clear that Nolan has anything to say about the ideas around the relation between future and present that he's engaging with - hence the ending focusing upon the undeveloped relationship between the protagonist and Kat. Honestly, you can read the protagonist as a kind of author insert (after all, he's the person who put the events of the film into action and devised the overall plot just as a director does) and the film as ultimately just about how smart Nolan is for coming up with its structure.