TENET

US, 2020, 150 minutes, Colour.
John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Martin Donovan, Fiona Dourif, Clemence Poesy, Himesh Patel.
Directed by Christopher Nolan.

Tenet was to be the spectacular film for 2020. However, it also fell victim to the coronavirus, release date put off, tentatively released in the United States, suffering at the box office because of the closure of cinemas, then released, step-by-step, in other countries.

Audiences were expecting it because of the reputation of its director, Christopher Nolan. For almost 20 years, he has made his mark on cinema, with his Batman trilogy, with his psychological imagination in Inception, with his exploration of space and time in Interstellar, re-creation of Dunkirk. He has a talent for the spectacular, extraordinary special effects, filming on 65 mm and IMAX film.

And, of course, that’s what he brings to Tenet. While Inception and Interstellar were mysterious binding, Tenet is even more so. The title is a palindrome, the TE at the beginning is in a different order at the end, indicating forwards and backwards…

Tenet requires full concentration to keep pace with the plot and its twists and turns (and returns). What on earth (in fact, for the earth) is happening at various points of the narrative? And, who is who? (At this stage, for those who might have been baffled and bewildered as they watched the 2 ½ hours of Tenet, a recommendation to check with Wikipedia and its plot outline to check whether you were correct or not.)

At the centre of the film is a character simply called The Protagonist (John David Washington) who is seen initially involved in a daring raid in the Ukraine Opera house, lone survivor, tortured, taking his cyanide pill to avoid talking – only to recover and be told by his superior that it was a test. We are wondering why the raid, who is the masked agent, what of the bullet holes and the way they have been created…?

Tenet has been filmed in quite a number of countries and locations, especially in Norway and Estonia, emphasising the Nordic and Eastern European atmosphere. By contrast, there is a visit to India. And further contrast to the beauty of a yacht on the Amalfi coast.

And, there are mysterious characters. Robert Pattinson, seeming genial, appears as a partner with The Protagonist in a range of enterprises, especially a raid in Oslo where a plane has driven straight into a terminal. There is a mysterious woman, Kat, Elizabeth Debicki, with her young son at a school in London. But we soon learn that she is estranged from her husband, a Russian oligarch, looking for plutonium and an algorithm. (For audiences not quite familiar with algorithms, plutonium, entropy, these aspects of Tenet require a bit of hard work and concentration.)

However, the Russian oligarch, Sator, is played by Kenneth Branagh, an arrogant brute of a man who elicits loathing.

The other aspect of the narrative to note is the fact of movement within time, forwards and backwards, mysterious bullets created in the future, activated in the past, a temporal turnstyle where people can be transferred back and forth, where people can coexist in the various times, where in a pincer movement military attack, troops can walk forward, troops can walk backward, for their tactics.

So, Tenet is rather overwhelming. There is a threat that the earth can be destroyed. There is the mysterious algorithm and its three sections. If all this is intriguing, then Tenet is a must see. If this is not intriguing, an audience needs to psych itself up to enter into this Tenet world.

1. The films of Christopher Nolan? Success? His interests, scope, visuals, spectacle? 65 mm, IMAX filming?

2. The themes of the present, the future, journeys into the past? The audience and the world of Tenet? Familiar and unfamiliar? The initial opera sequence in Ukraine? The various cities and locations, especially in Eastern Europe? Sea resorts and yachts? The Amalfi Coast?

3. A different future? Re-assessing the past? The possibility of the end of the world?

4. Christopher Nolan and the use of special effects? Spectacle? The musical score?

5. The title, the palindrome, the same word in reverse, the initial TE, at the end the reverse ET?

6. Drawing on action films, espionage, agents? The manipulation of time, going to the past, going into the future, reverse movement in the past? The two times coexisting? The world in entropy, possible destruction?

7. The initial operation, Ukraine and the opera, the performance, the agents, masked and in black, the violence, capture, the fumes and the audience unconscious?

8. The Protagonist in the operation, the masked man, the one bullet, the tag, the artefact and the algorithm, the Protagonist tortured, taking the cyanide pill? His waking? His team dead? The supervisor explaining the pill was a test?

9. Tenet, the organisation? The bullets and “inverted entropy�, the ability to go back through time? The bullets invented in the future, their potential, the scientist and her explanations?

10. Neil, his character, enigmatic, collaborating with the Protagonist, the bullets, leading to Priya Singh? Her being a member of Tenet?

11. Kat, her son, school, separated from her husband, Andrei Sator? In London? The school? The encounter with The Protagonist? The art forgery, install, her husband and his hold over Kat?

12. Oslo, the Turnstile mechanism, inverting entropy, the masked man, the two as one?

13. The loKation of Amalfi, the coast, the yacht? Kat and her presence with her husband, the antagonism, her attempt to drown him? The Protagonist’s saving him?

14. The spectacle of the use of the plane, crashing through the building, its part in the operation and manoeuvres?

15. The plutonium? The loKations in Oslo and Tallinn? The artefact and it appearing and disappearing? The various double crosses? Sator keeping Kat as a hostage? Her fear of threats to her son?

16. Sator, his power, his personality, brutal, the encounters with his wife? His using the device to be in two places, Kat dead and not dead? The Protagonist and his deals? In the inverting of Kat?

17. Neil, the collaboration, his appearances, enigmatic, his friendship with The Protagonist? Their working together?

18. The introduction of Ives, military, his team, their being informed, collaborating in the activities?

19. The turnstile, Neil and the Protagonist, going to and fro? The algorithm to revert the existence of the planet?

20. Sator, his cancer, terminal, remembering the holiday in Vietnam, the place and occasion for his death and destroying the world? Kat returning? Delaying while the search went
on for the algorithm?

21. Ives, his team, Siberia, the pincer movement, troops moving forward, troops and their backward movement? The search?

22. Tension with the time, the yacht and the signals, the wait, Kat killing Sator? The message about the algorithm, the corpse coming to life?

23. The algorithm in three parts, Neil and the revelation about the Protagonist of the relationship? Missions? Ives and taking part of the algorithm?

24. Priya, her attempt to kill Kat, the pro Protagonist killing her? Kat and her boy, school, the further relationship with the Protagonist?

25. Neil’s revelation, the Protagonist realising who he was, his role in Tenet, his leading the missions and strategies?