Tenet - The Best Kind Of Failure 

Hey Guys, I'm back from my break, and I hope you enjoyed today's video! I'm currently working on two videos right now. One on Cyberpunk 2077, I'm doing something extra special for that, and the other is on Wonder Woman 1984, what is quite possibly the worst superhero movie ever made. I hate that film. I just hate it. I still don't know if I want to make a proper video essay on it, or just a full on rant. It makes batman v superman look like a 9/10 masterpiece. If you want to chat with me and the rest of the community, feel free to join my discord server. I am very active on it, and if you want to discuss films or creative writing, it's the place for you! My discord: discord.com/invite/aJpYPQX All the best, - Henry

So Tenet is the good kind of failure because it’s an experiment that explores the limits of cinema. Which is why we can respect Nolan’s failures more than Disney’s

TENET failing is actually box office success.. it's just inverted.

Nolan is the perfect definition of the statement "Dream so high that when you fail, you'll fail above everybody else's success"

I actually really like John David Washington's character. He doesn't have a heroes journey character arc like many other characters in movies but he definitely evolved throughout the story. He starts as a government agent then evolves into a man fighting for something beyond a nations interests. By the end of the film he becomes the Protagonist, founder of Tenet. The final scene in the car with Priya shows what he becomes and the new demeanor and attitude he has toward his duty. I enjoy his character and I didn't even realize people would have a problem with him until I watched reviews and videos like this. I have really enjoyed this movie for the action packed adventure that it is. I really like the fast moving plot. Exposition can get really boring for me, Adhd I guess, so this is a really unique story that keeps me interested throughout. Its not a perfect movie but I have come to love it for what it is.

S A T O R A R E P O T E N E T O P E R A R O T A S

The most annoying thing about this film? Everyone pronouncing it “Tenant”.

I'm ADHD and Tenet was perfect for my brain. The entire movie was go go go lol

The fact that you don't know what's happening in the opening scene is what drew me in. It's one of my favorite scenes in the movie. I think it was intentionally vague and confusing

This video has expressed why I love Tenet better than I could put into words

I enjoyed Tenet as a pure sensory experience, because that's what it is. It's action distilled to its purest form, I'm glad I got to see it in IMAX because it hit hard.

Enjoyed this analysis a lot. It's funny that hearing these shortcomings put to words in a optimistic context can make the film better to me on another viewing lol. The title "Tenet" had me thinking before even watching that it''d benefit from a rewatch, and having seen this now, I think that rings very true.

I dunno, I really didn't see Tenet as a failure. As a science lover, I found the concept of inverted entropy fascinating. It never crossed my mind that the characters were two-dimensional or blank slates. Maybe it's because I enjoy puzzles and spy thrillers, but I loved being confused by the opening. Having the characters so confident in what they were doing made it seem like figuring out what was going on was a solvable puzzle. Even when I left the theater having not heard about 40% of the dialogue and not really understanding many of the plot points in the movie, I didn't care. Having seen it twice since, I still don't fully grasp it, but I want to. I really loved everything about the movie, and returning to it seeking answers has been enjoyable each time.

*Let’s take a Closer look.....but Backwards.*

So Tenet is bad? The Closer Look: "Well yes, but actually no, ,on yllautca tub ,sey lleW" :kooL resolC ehT ¿dab si teneT oS

You’re all missing the most salient point: Nolan is a Minimalist. Character is action, so backstory is superfluous. We see the characters make decisions, so we know who they are in the only way that matters in film. Show, don’t tell. I don’t think Tenet is as emotionally rich as Dunkirk, but Nolan tends to be emotionally cold in his films, like Kubrick before him. And if you compare Tenet to a Mission Impossible film, is there honestly more character development of the protagonist in Ethan Hunt’s case? Something about a girl he likes, then crazy stunts to save the world, only Tenet has time contortions Which would make The Doctor blush.

I though Neil was actually an amazing character. Watching it a second time. I also think Tenet was special because it is one of the few movies that gets better each and every time you watch it. It’s incredible. Everything about it was for me.

"If that most a written confession that Nolan chose to make his character a blank state" - Nolan has actually confirmed this in an interview, he mentions stripping back the characters in Dunkirk so it wouldn't feel like once character was more important to the story than the other, and once he noticed audiences and critics were still able to empathise with the characters despite them having little identity, he became curious if he could do this with a fictional story.

Honestly I liked the fact that the characters didn’t have much depth. It made the story feel a lot more mechanical, predetermined, which I think fits the “timetravel” aspect. I absolutely understand those who want characters to connect to, but I really enjoyed the impersonal perspective even if I can’t fully explain why

Alternate title: "TENET is a story without side quests."

The thing that actually drew me in about JDW’s character was during the opera house scene when it’s clear that the team has achieved their objective and they state that saving the people from the bombs is “not their mission” and JDW says, “it’s mine now.” It was his “save the cat” moment and so later when it seems that he is manipulating Kat (intentional?) just to get close to Sator I knew he was going to do everything he could to save her too. Considering she becomes key to the success of the end was great storytelling in my opinion.

"Peace has cost you your strength, victory has defeated you" - Bane, the dark knight rises Nolan knows exactly where true failure comes from, that's literally the point of that entire film, learning to never be complacent and throw yourself into a pit to see if you can climb back up, because when you reach the top you'll realise why you needed to do it, and if you don't throw yourself into a pit for too long, if you live in the luxury and endless peace of your own success without needing to try anymore, someone else will instead, when you least expect it, and you'll wish you had made your own mistake to fix, instead of someone else coming along and exploiting your weakness.

I think the soundscape of Tenet is one heck of a masterfully crafted masterpiece. It's 100% original. It is so iconic that not a single movie has done anywhere similar to that type of uniqueness.

I love how this movie just all comes together in the second half From the first time protagonist inverts so many scenes from the earlier parts come together Straight away the car chase gets explained And slowly over the course of the second airplane scene it all starts making sense essentially, the second half explains the first half

After watching dozens of breakdown vids and a 2nd viewing, I must say this movie is genius and a sheer masterpiece.

This video made me look at tenet in a whole different light. Tenet was confusing but at least it wasn't stale. Hollywood needs more movies like this. I'm seeing this movie again.

Here’s the interesting thing. I think The Protagonist isn’t supposed to have developed character yet at that point in the story. I think it’s a bold choice and I still enjoyed the film; completely engrossed by the plot and by what isn’t shown in the story. Robert Pattinson did a superb job leaving the relationship with the Protagonist to where you know there’s more... I connected with it but I see why others don’t.

Tenet honestly just feels like one of those action-movie-fueled fever dreams that you don’t want to wake up from

TBH I didn't notice the lack of character development, I was just so engrossed in the plot and trying to figure it out. I have watched this movie 7 times. I love it so much, and the fact that it took me so long to fully understand all the little details and how each scene fit together, for me that was thoroughly enjoyable. This is at least in my top 5 favorite movies.

This is my favorite film. Already watched it four times, and I love how unique, fast, stylized, full of depth and fun it is. You can look at this film thoroughly and still find a great movie in it. I don't even consider it a failure.

I'm surprised you even remembered 'MIB: International' at all to be used as an example.

I watched this last night with my dad, and I’d seen it once before. I prefaced the film by saying “the film doesn’t make sense the first time through but it’s not meant to until later, so don’t try to work it out as it’s happening” and it really helped. I explained that the first time I was trying so hard to work out what was going on, that come the prestige of the reveal, I realised I hadn’t been paying attention to the details or remembering parts so that I could retrospectively add things up. The second watch was so much more enjoyable for me as I got to notice the details which all mattered, and it was amazing.

This.....almost feels like that urban legend about taking the SAT, that if you fail it so completely, that means you did it on purpose and are therefore a genius! Something like that.

This video can be summed up in three words: "Dare to suck"

I thought the Tenet opening was not confusing at all. The Protagonist is a CIA spy rescuing another spy amidst a "fake" Opera Siege. He knew the Siege was fake to catch the spy but saved the civilians anyway.

Tenet combines the two kinds of openings you spoke about. It gives us a mystery to solve like MIB, and it has a protagonist who knows what's going on while the audience don't, like Inception. There are also bits in the opening that the protagonist DOESN'T understand, like us. The opening provides a mystery, a hook, that makes the audience curious, and it fulfills that promise by solving the mystery by the end of the film. It just doesn't provide instant gratification of explanation during or right after the sequence, instead rewarding you for following along. Which was perfectly fine imo.

I'd kinda argue that the side characters were the emotion of the movie and I'd say they were done amazingly. I see the protagonist as a type of character that has a flat character arc, he changes and affects the characters around him, making us love the side characters more and by loving them, we feel for the protagonist because they feel for him. Specifically Robert Pattinson's character and the future relationship he alludes to.

"Then fuck off.... why did I swear at the audience??? Heh" my fav moment

I taught Tenet had one of the most interesting concepts for an action movie I've ever seen (at least for as long as I can remember). While it's true that Tenet did not have the emotional throughline other great movies have, the rocksolid pace kept me hooked all the way through and felt like a glorious, time-travelling, mind fucking, rollercoaster ride. Conceptually, I actually like it that Nolan doesn't feel the need to explore his characters all of the time, compared to the concept of the movie itself. Dunkirk and Tenet spring to mind here

Tenet became my second favorite Nolan film, behind Inception. I don't think he was necessarily trying to handicap himself with John David Washington's character, instead I think he was trying to fully lean into the concept and physics of the movie. The blank slate protagonist helps to allow the audience to place themselves in the movie along with the peripheral characters. There may not be an arc to the protagonist, but there's a lot going on with his character development throughout the movie!

I love this movie. Normally I care about characters, but for this movie I got engulfed in the concepts.

About the opening: The protaginist is confused, you're in the maze with him the whole time as more and more is revealed about Tenet

The emotional string along with the brilliance of a core concept is what made *Inception* GREAT...

I feel like this movie should've made into a video game. Exploring lores and piecing together the puzzle of what's going on.

One of the things that seems very strange until you get to the end is that Protagonist's story we see is at the beginning and Neil's is at the end. Neil cares because he already has the relationship.

Tbh I liked tenet cause i saw the things going backwards and was like “oh wow that looks sick.” I couldn’t have cared less about the story.

2001: A Space Odyssey doesn't really have compelling 3 dimensional characters, but it still stands as one of the best movies ever made. So, you can make a great movie without the need of complex characters. I don't know if this was the intended discussion, but it is an interesting one.

Honestly I like everything about this film, it's just so enjoyable to me and cannot get enough of the action, the concept, the characters, etc.

"In case the past 10 minutes didn't convince you of that" He says this 8 minutes into the video

This is exactly why Nolan needs to do a Masterclass on filmmaking or storytelling.

Tenet is the emotional and writing technical opposites of interstellar in so many ways its mind boggling. They only meet in the middle when it comes to the way you need to feel concepts vs thinking about them. Hes one of the true artists left in any genre True art

honestly given the expository nature of tenet and the many many many classroom-esque scenes in it I think it is artistically spot on what it wants to be. Watch in the typical way, such its a bad film, but when you understand that the purpose of cinema is to learn about a world and get lost in it he very much hit that mark in a new way. With the film being directly about moving backwards in time and the end being a beginning and vice versa it really shows that the best way to understand the film is after two watches and from there you can begin to see the arcs of the film since the arcs themselves transcend the platform of typical cinema. In this way Nolan inspired thousands of videos on youtube to come up trying to understand this meta story arc where you can't just watch the film you have to understand the film, you have to look at it from a new perspective. You have to watch it forwards, you have to watch it backwards, you have to make hypotheses about the missing parts of the film given by the exposition already in the film. There you force the audience to enjoy the film thoroughly or lose those who don't have the will to understand it, and even those people can then see what the forced audience saw when videos like these or the syncronized videos or reverse videos. Ultimately Nolan made the ultimate movie for our time. One that allows the audience to imagine, to be creative of the arc that happened when young neil actually met the protagonist, how neil came back in time to meet the young protagonist. Moreover the name "protagonist" comes off not as a simply "blank slate" but as a codename for a timeline that needed to be placed correctly by the organization that man would go on to create. It seems very plainly that way if we understand Max as the last(or 'past') Neil. I think theres a lot to tenet that really goes out of its way to be fundamentally amazing.

I think the answer is yes.

I’d love to see Nolan make a horror film

I hope John David Washington goes really far.

Your comment about Nolan’s making aspects of the film _deliberately_ bad is spot on I think, and there’s evidence backing this up. In the blu-ray special features, Nolan said that he wanted to make an antagonist so evil that he has no redeeming qualities at all. Branagh’s character has all the clichés of a super-villain: rich, violent (even towards his own men), abusive; he also wants to end the world and is a Russian. In contrast, Nolan has made memorable villains before (the Joker being the obvious example), and he has also made compelling films without a clear-cut villain role - “The Prestige” and “Inception” come to mind. “Tenet’s” terrible characters obviously don’t come from Nolan’s lack of skill in writing. I don’t know why Nolan does this though, as it doesn’t do “Tenet” any favors. The film is saved by Nolan’s increasing adroitness in making clever and physically real action sequences. With scenes like the inverted hallway fight, the truck heist, and the plane crash, it almost doesn’t matter that the characters are so emotionally thin. P.S. Nolan’s best film is still “Dunkirk” for me. Even with stripped-down storytelling aspects, that film still manage to have emotionally resonant characters. It’s a rare moment where Nolan opted for less and made the film richer for it.

This is the best! I was struggling to explain to myself why I enjoyed TENET so much without caring about anybody in it. It's more like a puzzle than a story and left me unsatisfied but not feeling cheated. Your essay clarified. Thank you.

About this story, I somewhat find relevancy to Dunkirk. It's an excerpt from all the happenings, where the actors in focus play a specific role of expression/action. I feel the intention to not develop any character arc is to emphasize on the happening itself, which is a running theme in all of Nolan's masterpieces. Great video!

"Can you tell a story where the protagonist is just the playable character from skyrim and still have a gripping story?" I mean, Hardcore Henry did it...

I absolutely love TENET, I've watched it more than 3 times now. And the more I watch it again, the more I love it.

So basically this movie is like a science experiment who's point is for the reaction to not work and create something new, but to discover why the reaction didn't happen. Or at least that's how I see it.

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking when I watched Filmento’s video. “Like yeah, yeah, the characters are bad, but the question is *why*” And that’s the thing too, all the side characters are properly “sized”, one might say. Neil, Sator and Kat are excellent, with Kat carrying the emotional core of the movie by dint of Protagonist not having anything along those lines.

This movie is perfect for 2020. It’s a movie people who find themselves going into a world where time has lost all meaning and people have to wear masks to survive when outside in this world.

Really good movie IMO, wish they explained the "turnstile" thing more. A movie truly worth multiple re-watching to get everything.

In Tenet, the protagonist and the main villain is not the hero or the person we should care about, at least initially. The two people *I* cared about are Kat and Neil. When at the end of the movie I understood that Neil sacrificed himself in cold blood to save the world, and when Kat could not help herself but show her abuser that he had failed before she kills him, these were great, emotional moments. Then something else happened. It turns out that Neil and Kat are likely related, and the Protagonist who is completely clueless throughout the movie is actually the main orchestrator of the whole narrative, I found that amazing. I also began to understand the motivations of the villain and his own demons. It turn out that neither the Protagonist nor the Villain are one-dimensional characters. They have dimension, but they don't appear linearly through the film. A single viewing was not enough to get all this for me. The beauty of Tenet is that it can be watched and watched and watched again, and the intricacies of the plot and character development slowly unveil, layer by layer. Initially, at first viewing, I was not impressed by Tenet. Now, after about 3 viewings, I think it's a masterpiece.

As a person who has lived for a long time in Tallinn, I can easily say that watching this and recognizing the locations and hearing it being directly mentioned plus the insane visuals was probably the most enjoyable and awesome moviegoing experience I've ever had.

Damn I had a thought a lot like the title after I saw this. The movie could have been better, but I’m so glad to see somebody come up with a genuinely unique idea and make an effort to translate it to the screen. The big sequels, remakes, adaptations, etc can be cool, but after a while many get tired of seeing the same properties following the same formula

Every single time I come to this channel to seek clarity when watching films, I mostly agree with everything said, like its so bang on and its at thought through, the proposed idea of a better clearer intro, slightly different but sticking to the main idea is as though, taking the words out of my mouth. such praise, great great vid. Always enjoy seeing eye to eye with these films.

Given that the future players of tenet are forced to come back and attempt to kill their past because the past and present of humankind have doomed the future this apathetic choice of character attachment seems deliberate and fitting to me. While the individual is the vessel to carry out actions it's simply not about them but rather whether we, as a global team, can pull through and prevent ultimate doom. As you said in your analysis (23:33) you don't care about the hero's cause because you built no personal attachment to their struggle, which is the exact same situation we are currently in with global warming and depriving future generations of their livability. As the majority of people aren't affected on a personal level most people behave towards climate change the same way we consume this movie, passively rooting for the good guys because we know we should while just being handed through one important marker after another at breakneck speed towards a final conclusion we know is coming. In the context of climate change, the bland protagonist makes perfect sense as there is no point in growth based on learning or development as we already know all there is to know about the situation we try to prevent (some characters in the movie quite literally know) and it's not about the attachment or how invested you are but whether people do the right thing at the right time hoping everyone else does as well.

Honestly... The only character I cared about is Robert Pattinson's Neil character.... Because he's fun to watch and has some character and not a blank slate maybe!!

I have beginning to believe that all of Nolan's movies actually take place inside the Matrix.

Who else is able to enjoy something like Tenet with no characters, a whole lot of confusion, just an exploration of a concept, and a brilliant puzzle to solve as the audience? just me?

So I just watched this movie, and am surprised to find that I'm in the minority that really loved it. My only real gripe is the dialogue being difficult to understand at times, so I watched with subtitles (that didn't bother me because I'm used to using subs for foreign films, anime, etc.) . But the Protagonist being a blank-slate was cool for me, because it allowed me to use him as a self-insert, and imagine myself in his shoes. This is harder to do when a protagonist has a more clearly defined character that you can't completely relate to. The story didn't really need the protagonist to bew anything more than "the heroic spy who's willing to take risks to save civilians, give his life for his country, and step into the unknown to save humanity." I loved the movie because it toyed with a concept that hasn't really been done before. It was both a spy film AND a time-travel film. And the concept alone (with the film's strong adherence to its universe's own rules) was well more than enough to keep me enthralled throughout the films duration. I thoroughly enjoyed rewatching scenes to fully wrap my head around everything that occurred. If a movie uses a concept to such a complex degree that you have to sit and think about it for it to make sense, then it becomes a challenge like a puzzle, which is also quite fun.

I've always said, criticizing Nolan is like pointing out that a championship team could have done things better.

Imma be honest, when I saw this movie I was high af and confused as all hell, but ig even watching it sober people had no idea what was happening

I enjoyed reading the Tenet screenplay much more than watching the actual movie. There are so many explanations on paper that never made their way on screen. For example the explanation why he is shooting at himself during the fight.

I loved Tenet’s opening, it’s one of my favourites/my favourite

A new video! Feels like it’s been forEVER. This channel will always be one of my top inspirations.

This was one of my favorite films, it wasn’t as quotable as the dark knight series and wasn’t as emotional as practically any other films but it compelled me and I can’t really explain why.

The movie either lives or dies on its main premise: the importance of posterity and what we leave to them. Since Nolan follows the show don’t tell philosophy and since the characters in this movie cannot know anything about each other, we are left with only what we see, which is not a lot since information cannot be freely given as it could get into wrong hands down the road. I believe the movie shows some character and emotion, it just doesn’t (or can’t) spoon feed it to the audience. It needs to be gleaned, possibly from several watches given the intricate plot.

Like inception saying never recreat something you see or saw form your memory but make it your own.That's Nolans confession for his art

A closer look on 'The Prestige'

nolan makes films like they’re going to be trilogies - they have ideas that feel like they’re going to be teased out - each film feels like act 3 is yet to happen

I just don’t like how only at the end I understood how things work

"Tenet's opening is Christopher Nolan's worst opening…" is like talking about a Pixar movie's worst heart-felt moment; or John Williams' worst score. Even the worst-of-breed is still better than 95% of other movies.

This really put into conscious thought why I've loved Nolan unconsciously. Great video and perspective!

I walked out of the theatre backwards to confuse people.

were you ever in class and just accepted the fact that you were completely lost and so far behind no one could help you, but stayed and listen anyway? that’s how it felt watching this movie and just like when i was in class, i had to go watch youtube videos to understand it

"Soft Science" is probably the best thing i've ever heared.

Honestly, the weakest part of the movie for me was when Nolan tried to give John David Washington's character some emotional motivation with Elizabeth Debicki's character. I thought her character was interesting and had a good place in the story, but I didn't care for the romance between the two because I was enjoying the Protagonist just being a CIA agent adjusting to the world of inversion, learning about it and becoming comfortable with it. I saw it more as a spy thriller where the characters are doing their job, rather than a movie where the characters need to grow and undergo a change. Then again, I'm usually more interested in the concepts and world of a movie rather than the characters, so it's probably just me.

Golden Age science fiction spent decades giving us stories without characters. I often complain that youtube story reviewers are unreflectively narrow minded when it comes to character arcs, so I really appreciated this video for being very up front about it. You do you, man.

Great video, made me look at Tenet in a whole new light.

Neil was good though, he was my favorite character and i was really sad because i feel like he wasnt explored enough

I can't even lie, that rewrite literally had me so in it. Fucccckkk why couldn't have that been the movie. I was so immersed lol

I’m the in media res bit genuinely made me laugh out loud and you have earned a subscription cause I also loved the vid

So the reason he’s your favorite director is “Posterity”. I feel that.

It's pretty impressive how you can explain so accurately that weird emotion of loving/not loving this movie. It's something that kept me thinking for a long time after watching the movie but, until now, i hadn't found an accurate answer that pleased me. Great work!!

I don't know if there was something wrong with my cinema back when I watched tenet but DAMN it was LOUD

exceellent analysis. These videos are the reason why I love this channel

The beginning of TeneT felt like the best beginning I've ever seen when I was watching it