Nolan has been slipping for me in the past few movies. And rewatches of his grander works has proven that the problems I had with his films are clearer than ever, though the great ones are still good. So I’m excited to see how I’ll like Tenet...
I’m seeing this exactly a week from now. August 24th. And in 70mm as well.
Not for me, he seems to be improving on aspects that he lacked before. Look at his previous works, they all feel cold, calculated and mechanical. They lack real emotion and Nolan relies too much on the same backstory for characters (DEAD WIVES). Much like Kubrick, his work is a marvel, but distant emotionally. I think Inception was a turning point. Critics tend to point out his lack of emotion for films so Inception was the first one that tried to incorporate it into the story with the Cob & Mal relationship. This is heightened with Cob's main goal being "get back to see my kids". The emotion is there in the final image of the top. While people like to debate if it falls or not (I'm in the it does camp) it's clear to me that the final scene is an emotional one for the character and the audience as well.
Moving on to Interstellar, we have one of his most emotionally draining films. Two scenes jump out at me. The first is when Cooper is leaving and we get the shot of him in the truck, breaking down emotionally while Murph is regretting her decision to not say good bye. The shot alone is well blocked. Then the "big" one when Cooper is watching the YEARS go by in video messages. His kids are no longer kids, he's missed their entire lives. It's a gut wrenching scene, acted beautifully. My one complaint is that when they meet up in the end, it's a tad too quick. I'm glad Nolan doesn't milk the scene for tears, but a moment or two longer would have been nice.
Finally Dunkirk might be his most emotionally engaging film, despite not being in your face about it like Interstellar is. It's also his first film that is based on historical facts and it continues to show his technical prowess with stellar sequences involving boats and planes. Watching Tom Hardy's plane glide in the air is a beautiful moment. With the exception of Following, Dunkirk is Nolan's shortest film, but it's the most tense. The entire running time is that ticking clock. Could he have ended the film with the shot with the flaming plane as a nice metaphor? Sure, but he gives us a little moment of silence with the boys on the train. It's a nice bookend to the eerie silence we get at the beginning.
The Dark Knight Rises is a misstep for me. The scale got a little out of his hands and while there are indeed great moments, as a whole I was left mixed. He still cannot film fight choreography properly.