A Familiar Name
Christopher Nolan is a fascinating director with a tremendously high-regarded filmography. He attracts A-list actors; everyone knows who he is, and he has made movies that all audiences love. Yet he has also made movies that have only a cult following; and films that have all-but-entirely flown under the radar. Everyone has seen The Dark Knight trilogy and Inception, but how many have seen Insomnia, Memento, or Following? You've probably seen The Prestige, but how many of his movies came to your mind before it?
Likewise, his fan-base is as unique and far-reaching as his filmography. He managed to weave and suction his creative tentacles into every audience, film discussion, blog post, award ceremony, and fanboy's masturbatory subconscious on the film-watching globe. And with the release of Tenet, his creative mind has never been so free. With this most recent entry, has Christopher Nolan solidified his persona as the best and most visionary working director, or has his success and creative mind become his downfall?
A Filmography for the Books
There is no doubt that Christopher Nolan deserves his name-recognition and popularity. From his directorial debut, Following, he has loved to bend genre norms, push filmmaking limits, and play intricate mind games with his audience. Back then, he had nowhere near the resources he currently has. He did what he could, but he wasn't a mature filmmaker yet, and no one can blame him. Following had seeds of creative concepts, but it didn't manage to do anything with them.
It wasn't until Inception that Nolan's mind was truly on display. A blockbuster smash reeking of ingenuity, many consider it to be his magnum opus, and with good reason. He used a fresh, expansive, complicated-yet-manageable concept to tell a story about grief, loss, wonder, imagination, memories, and consciousness. And he used mind-bending set pieces to boot. Sure, Leonardo DiCaprio might have been under-used, and his character wasn't all that interesting, but the rest of it more than made up for that.
Later, Interstellar showed Nolan at his most nuanced. He told one of the most epic, spellbinding, magnificent adventure movies in recent memory. He took scientific ideas to new heights and used complex theoretical and practical physics to capture the interest and love of all audiences. Yet he made the inexplicably odd choice of a fourth- (fifth? Who knows) dimensional bookshelf for his climax. He tried to use space travel as a conduit for a story about the human condition. Yet the film itself focused so much on its scientific concepts that its themes were left to be exposited by a crying Anne Hathaway. (For what it's worth, I thought Ad Astra was more successful in its endeavor to use space as a conduit for a story about the human condition.)
Nevertheless, Christopher Nolan's unique and imaginative filmmaking brought him well-deserved fan-favorite status and critical acclaim. However, these vast concept films came with a catch. Memento and Insomnia laid the groundwork for Warner Brothers to approach him with Batman Begins, but Christopher Nolan - being who he is - already had an idea for a film about 19th-century musicians battling to out-do each other (which would later become The Prestige). Indeed, Warner Brothers was dubious that Nolan's mind could translate to mainstream audiences.
They solved this dilemma with a one-for-you, one-for-me approach. A quid-pro-quo, if you will. If Nolan gave them Batman Begins (2005), then they would give him The Prestige (2006). (Which is actually his best film, by the way.) He wanted to do Inception (2010), but he'd have to do The Dark Knight (2008) first. And in order to go ahead with Interstellar (2014), he'd have to close the trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Although let's be honest, he pretty well phoned it in for that one. Nevertheless, after a string of movies whose posters plaster filmbros' bedrooms to this day, he was awarded the, "Do Whatever the Fuck You Want" card. Only a handful of directors have achieved the directorial golden ticket, and by 2013, Nolan chiseled his name on yet another stone tablet of history.
Tenet: Christopher Nolan Unhinged and Uncut
Thus, with his John Hancock plastered in the history books - and his coveted trump card in his pocket - the bridles were officially removed. Yet Nolan's hyper-functional frontal cortex - coupled with his unbridled enthusiasm and bottomless resources - has left me at a bit of a quandary when it comes to his filmography; much to the dismay of my fellow filmbro community. And it wasn't until I saw Tenet that my aforementioned unpopular internal conflict was vindicated.
Tenet is a culmination of everything that has gone wrong with Christoper Nolan's movies ever since he received his career-culminating "fuck you" status. In many ways, he's used it much too literally. Tenet is riddled with - nay, born from - problems that recently became more clear.
His previous film, Dunkirk, was the first far-reaching war-based epic utterly devoid of character. Nevertheless, the spectacle is tremendous, the converging stories are compelling and imaginative, and all its effects are superb. For some, that's enough; for others, it highlights a hole in its center: can you name any characters from Dunkirk? Hell, do you even know who was in it? Indeed, Dunkirk has neither heart nor soul and fails to reach audiences on any emotional level. Thus, Nolan made his first movie with characters in name only.
So how does Nolan solve this issue? Why, he creates characters without names, either!
Tenet is frustrating because all of its issues were focal, deliberate creative choices. Issues that arise as a byproduct of innovative ideas are one thing, but seeing someone willfully crash into an iceberg is so much worse than knowing they hit it while discovering a new world. Nolan doubled down on everything that had limited his previous work. For God's sake, Tenet's protagonist is literally named "The Protagonist." Nolan's galaxy brain decided that he can't fail at creating a compelling character if he never writes a character to begin with. All this for the sake of making a film whose sole purpose - and result - is nothing but spectacle.
Granted, Tenet's spectacle is one of the most creative, genre-defying, mind-bending concepts in recent memory. But is that enough? Christopher Nolan was self-aware enough to address the fact that his dialogue is inaudible and his plot is largely incomprehensible, but pointing that out doesn't excuse it outright.
It isn't difficult to realize what Nolan was trying to do. Films that are difficult to follow but culminate in "ah-hah" moments are as satisfying as they are entertaining. But once you're able to figure out what is happening in Tenet, its awe and intrigue are lost rather than enhanced. Its near-impossible comprehensibility is a feature, not a bug. Indeed, there isn't much more to be said about Tenet, because there isn't much else to it. It is a concept film in the worst sense of the word; one that highlights all of Christopher Nolan's worst impulses. A long, convoluted, self-gratifying experiment that was performed to vindicate its director's (and his fans') self-aggrandizing dogma.
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