Tenet (2020)

There are certain movies that are difficult to wrap your head around.  I knew Tenet would be like that going into it.  It’s 2½ hours, which is intimidating enough.  But to know that there are people and objects that are temporally inverted adds a whole new level of things to keep track of.

The lead character, known simply as The Protagonist, starts by trying to extract someone from an opera house.  He gets caught up in something much more complicated.  The first hint of this is bullets that can be fired backwards so that they go in to a gun.  There are other items that ostensibly come from the future, which would imply that people can go backwards, as well.  Also, what happened to cause this?  Was there some sort of war?  How was all of this set up?  What’s the end game?

I’m not going to go into the details of the plot, mostly because I can’t remember most of them.  It was that complicated.  I will say that I found a lot of it confusing.  Yes, people can go backwards in time.  It’s tricky and they have to bring inverted oxygen with them.  To give you an example of what I mean, one character drives a normal car while inverted.  The car seems to go on once the character jumps out, but it’s not clear why.  I’m not sure if the car was inverted or if someone was driving the car before (or is it after?) the other character.

This is not a movie for people who don’t like complicated plots.  I like complicated plots and I think I was able to follow most of it, but I’m not sure.  The movie is heavy on the technical side without really making a lot of sense.  I think part of it is that you have to keep track of what’s going backwards and what’s not going backwards.

We get to see at least one big fight in both directions, which is something to watch.  The question is, though, what can be changed?  Could someone from the future do something different on the way back?  What would that even mean?

Stuff like the fight scene was cool, only because I grasped what was going on.  There were a few scenes that I didn’t understand and I felt like I was supposed to.  If you’re reading this and you’re confused by the movie, you’re not alone.  And this isn’t even something that could be explained in a few sentences.  I’d probably need to watch the movie again with notes to understand a lot of it.  This is one of the few times where I might have watched the movie again with a commentary track where someone was explaining it all.  (I’m good with details, but I’m sure there’s a lot that I missed.)

I wouldn’t recommend watching this with someone else who hasn’t seen it yet.  I was watching it with my parents and they had about as many questions as I did.  I had no answers for them.  Yes, it’s a confusing movie.  Now that the movie has been out for a while, I might look around for some explanations.

 

IMDb page

 

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

I’ve often wondered what an alien race might think of us.  I pointed out in a review of Dark Girls that they might not want much to do with us, given how we treat each other.  We have groups like the Ku Klux Klan that espouse the supremacy of those descended through Europe.  We tend to look down on each other.

When Ron Stallworth joined the Colorado Springs Police Department, he wanted to work undercover.  He got his chance by reporting on a rally hosted by local Black student union.  Speaking is Kwame Ture, who inspires Stallworth.  (Stallworth doesn’t agree with everything Ture has to say, but admits that he’s a powerful speaker.)

One day, while reading the newspaper, Stallworth sees an ad for the local KKK chapter.  On a whim, he calls and leaves a message.  This leads to a callback and a meeting.  It’s bad enough that Stallworth used his actual name.  Now, he needs to enlist fellow undercover officer Phillip Zimmerman.  Stallworth will be the voice on the phone while Zimmerman will play Stallworth for any face-to-face meeting.  The objective is to bring down the chapter of the Klan.  Although that doesn’t happen, the police do manage to stop a few cross burnings.

The movie is based on a 2014 book that Stallworth wrote about the investigation.  While I would imagine that the story is by and large true to the book, it looks like some liberties were taken.  (Ron Stallworth never actually altered his voice on the phone, for instance.)  It’s still interesting to see the events play out.  Apparently, Stallworth never intended the investigation to go that far.  A lot of it was making things up as they went along.

The movie plays out more as a comedy than anything dramatic or suspenseful.  (There is a sense of historical irony when characters comment on things that have actually come to pass.)  There isn’t a sense that either Stallworth or Zimmerman are in any real danger.  You know that even if they don’t win the battle, they’ll live to fight another fight.  They also won’t necessarily make an impact on the larger picture, as the KKK is still around.

As you might have seen in the trailer, the movie doesn’t shy away from using derogatory terms.   There are also a few tense moments.  This is not going to be a movie for children.  There are way too many situations that would either be inappropriate or go over their heads.  Even for adults, ther ewill be a few uncomfortable scenes.  The movie does deal with race directly.

It is interesting to see the parallels between the African-American students and the KKK.  Both want to advance their cause, although the students want equality whereas the Klan (or the Organization, if you will) wants supremacy.  Thus, Stallworth has to walk a fine line.  Those in the African-American community don’t like the police, and with good reason.  As Stallworth points out, the best way to affect change might be to do it from within.

IMDb page