Yesterday, I talked about movies that Christopher Nolan has directed and how they are all quite wonderful. But you don't understand.
I LOVE Tenet.
When I first saw it, I didn't quite catch the magic. However, something began mulling over in my subconscious after that first watching, and after a while, I felt compelled to watch it again. And this time, I was hooked.
Although I didn't know why.
After that, I've seen it a few more times (twice this year alone), every time baffled: what was it exactly that made me like the film so much? If you know me, you know I like to dissect the movies I like and pinpoint the exact reason why they appeal to me. But with Tenet, I had no idea, even after several viewings.
I was increasingly exasperated, and so, in August, I expressed this exasperation to my partner, who agreed to watch the movie with me.
After seeing it, he could IMMEDIATELY verbalize the reason I like the movie so much.
The philosophical point of Tenet is that the movie is a metaphor for the pendulum: the phenomenon where your life fluctuates between the fear of life and the fear of death, each of which manifest itself in the way you live, what you value, and so forth. It's the life-ruling paradigm of the human being. Realizing that the pendulum effect is why I sometimes feel one way and later the complete opposite has been one of my favorite epiphanies.
What this means, of course, is that Sator is not a bad guy; reversing the flow of time won't destroy the universe; the events of the movie aren't happening for the first time; and that reality is supposed to be a circle, or rather, a pendulum that swings one way and then the other and then back again.
This is why Tenet is probably Christopher Nolan's best movie. Not only is it extraordinarily entertaining and beautiful and perfectly scored, but it's also philosophical, psychological, and metaphorical.
RK
