10 Movies Directors Didn't Want You To Understand

On the other hand, frustration inevitably abounds when a new $200 million blockbuster from one of the most celebrated filmmakers working today is a frustrating chore to decipher.

Christopher Nolan's Tenet may be an ambitious, visually stunning sci-fi extravaganza, but it's also received flak from critics and audiences alike for its intentionally cacophonous sound mix.

If Nolan's last few films have granted a clear preference to music and sound effects over dialogue, that artistic choice is dialled up considerably for Tenet, whereby huge chunks of important dialogue are scarcely audible underneath walls of bombastic music and ambient sound.

In a Q&A last year, Nolan's regular sound editor Richard King attempted to explain Nolan's approach to deliberately obfuscating dialogue:

"Chris is trying to create a visceral emotional experience for the audience, beyond merely an intellectual one. Like punk rock music, it’s a full-body experience, and dialogue is only one facet of the sonic palette. He wants to grab the audience by the lapels and pull them toward the screen, and not allow the watching of his films to be a passive experience. If you can, my advice would be to let go of any preconceptions of what is appropriate and right and experience the film as it is, because a lot of hard intentional thought and work has gone into the mix."

Though Nolan himself hasn't yet commented upon Tenet's sound mix in particular, he did chime in after Interstellar received flak for its unconventional aural design:

"I don’t agree with the idea that you can only achieve clarity through dialogue. Clarity of story, clarity of emotions - I try to achieve that in a very layered way using all the different things at my disposal - picture and sound. I've always loved films that approach sound in an impressionistic way and that is an unusual approach for a mainstream blockbuster, but I feel it's the right approach for this experiential film."

The unfortunate irony, of course, is that for a film which has been hailed as cinema's great "saviour," for many it will be a more comprehensible experience when viewed at home with subtitles in a few months. Yikes.