TENET Doesn't Explain Its Logic - It Demonstrates It | The Backdrop
Added 2024-03-26 15:04:35 +0000 UTCHoly crap, Darren Mooney has learned how to edit videos.
This man is close to taking over the world at this point. Go watch his first self-edited episode of The Backdrop on TENET right now!
Comments
(I certainly am! I’ve been reading your work for close to a decade now — I spent countless hours in high school pouring over the archives of them0vieblog)
Elizabeth Edwards
2024-04-03 03:54:06 +0000 UTCObligatory side watch DARK. Basically it is about destiny trap, is free will to choose what to do, or it is about narrow situation and choice of taking on chin and working trough it.
Pēteris Krišjānis
2024-03-27 07:23:34 +0000 UTC"Mwahahahaha!" To be fair, this was kinda how I shared this. I wanted to see if I could make a video, so I didn't tell Nick or Jesse about it beforehand, because that way - if I failed - I wouldn't be embarrassing myself or letting them down. So they literally just opened their Slack one day to be like, "Here's 12 minutes on TENET." I thank both of them for being very patient.
Darren Mooney
2024-03-26 23:00:43 +0000 UTCThank you, Elizabeth! (And also, I think you might be the Elizabeth I've interacted with on Twitter back in the day. If so, thank you for coming along. It means the world to me.)
Darren Mooney
2024-03-26 22:58:59 +0000 UTC"I have been left to my own devices, nobody can stop me, so lets talk about Tenet" I like the way you think
Maya Luevano
2024-03-26 22:15:59 +0000 UTCI spent this whole video doing the sickos.jpg meme in my chair. This was my favorite installment of the series so far; your film criticism is uniformly great, but your writing on Nolan in particular is some of the sharpest analysis his work's received to-date
Elizabeth Edwards
2024-03-26 20:43:23 +0000 UTCI didn't have much trouble following Tenet because I didn't think the film needed to explain itself so much as it just needed to know the rules itself. So long as it was consistent, I didn't really care if I knew how it worked. This discussion reminds me of the conversation surrounding The Boy and the Heron, or at least a comment someone made about how the film "didn't make any sense" because the rules of the worlds weren't clearly defined. I think the reason why people disregarded this opinion is similar to why you propose that people are coming around to Tenet, that the rules don't need to be 100% clear so long as they're just interesting to watch work. There's still clearly a logical throughline under the narrative but that's not really what it's about. It's not "fairy tale logic" because the film and the filmmaker are both smarter than that. But it's clear that you're not supposed to entirely follow why things happen, you're just supposed to enjoy the ride there. Nothing is contradictory, but we are clearing watching something that operates within a set of rules that we don't really know. Also congrats on your first edited video, no better teacher than necessity lol. I look forward to seeing what else you learn to do in the future
Ryallen
2024-03-26 16:25:14 +0000 UTCI think making an intricate construction or an extreme thought experiment is a valid goal for making a movie though. It's not gonna land with anyone but for someone exhausted by movies designed by committee to land with as many people as possible (like a former MCU fan) I find tenet refreshing. It's certainly indulgent but that's what endears it to me: someone wanted very very badly to make this movie, specifically. I like that.
ixi
2024-03-26 15:53:48 +0000 UTCMy problem with Tenet and Nolan in general, is that I understand the logic, I just don't feel anything about it. It just feels like a construction. It's film making over storytelling, a more populist version of Wes Anderson.
Michael McCarthy
2024-03-26 15:45:21 +0000 UTCHopefully!
Darren Mooney
2024-03-26 15:41:15 +0000 UTCAlso darren your editing on this was great!!!
ixi
2024-03-26 15:32:02 +0000 UTCI LOVE tenet so much. I initially skipped it because I don't really follow movies (esp at that point) and no one told me it was about time travel. I'm a sucker for time travel movies. Before I watched it I heard how pretentious it was, but I really didn't feel that way. Describing it as a vibes movie is so spot on, it's so beautiful and it just feels so good to watch. It's a puzzle and a thought experiment wrapped in an action movie, and I love all of those things. I'm the kind of person who prefers to be dropped in the middle of a story and told to figure it out, to piece things together with visual cues and worldbuilding and the way characters behave with each other. tenet gives you all the tools you need to understand it but does not care whether an audience keeps up or not. I can see why some people were frustrated by it and why the movie felt closed off to them, but I loved it. And because the vibes are so good and the concepts are so chewy, it's so reawatchable to me. In fact it may be time for another rewatch now
ixi
2024-03-26 15:31:11 +0000 UTCHe's growing too powerful...
Titan Uranus
2024-03-26 15:30:07 +0000 UTCI hope this presages many more videos!
Mike Lee
2024-03-26 15:21:35 +0000 UTC
