Review 574: Tenet
Armed with only one word – Tenet – and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a secret agent known only as "The Protagonist" (John David Washington) journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission to prevent WWII that will unfold in something beyond real time. Not time travel. Inversion.
The plot is an intricate, Nolan engages us in scenes of loud noices and incomprehensible dialogue, but the dialogue is not the point. The film is purposefully made to function without it. The sound design and the score are so purposefully loud and intrusive that it feels redundant to point where it functions almost like a silent film. I think that it goes without saying that the title is a Palindrome so it reads the same backward as forward.
At its core, Tenet is an espionage thriller. Nolan's love and respect for the genre is laced in every frame of the film. This may very well be the closest thing that he makes to a James Bond film, it's got all the typical staples of a Bond film ranging from the globe trotting adventure to the unique gadgets and the maniacal teeth gnashing Tenet is to the spy genre what Inception was 10 years ago for the heist film.
It's also a film that deals with the concept of time. In this case it's "Time Inversion": the idea that the Entropy of an object or person could be reversed. It's all madly preposterous and at the end of the day doesn't make any sense but as Peter Bradshaw put it "It shouldn't make sense" According to Nolan, it's a film about the direction of time which is defined by Entropy. Tenet introduces the idea that Entropy is the cause. Rather than moving backwards and forwards in time, machines have been invented that can change the direction of time for an object or person.
Free Will is another prominent theme in Tenet: The world that Tenet takes place in appears to be deterministic - What happens must always happen.
Christopher Nolan's direction is marvelous throughout. Filming many of the scenes (action or otherwise) in an amazing blend of wide, medium and close ups. The cinematography is gorgeous, the locations are splendid, the scenery is breathtaking, the score by Ludwig Goransson is spectacularly, pulse pounding and energy filled. The action scenes are a feast for the eyes
John David Washington delivers a steadfast and charismatic performance playing the films protagonist. He is never mentioned by name throughout the entirety of the films 150 min runtime which seems to be Nolan's adherence to Todorov's theory. It also allows us to put ourselves as an audience in his shoes and project our front and backstory. His whole world and everything he believes in has turned upside down. He must keep going through the stiles, learning, and adjusting until he gets it right.
Christopher Nolan's direction is marvelous throughout. Filming many of the scenes (action or otherwise) in an amazing blend of wide, medium and close ups. The cinematography is gorgeous, the locations are splendid, the scenery is breathtaking, the score by Ludwig Goransson is spectacularly, pulse pounding and energy filled. The action scenes are a feast for the eyes
John David Washington delivers a steadfast and charismatic performance playing the films protagonist. He is never mentioned by name throughout the entirety of the films 150 min runtime which seems to be Nolan's adherence to Todorov's theory. It also allows us to put ourselves as an audience in his shoes and project our front and backstory. His whole world and everything he believes in has turned upside down. He must keep going through the stiles, learning, and adjusting until he gets it right.
Robert Pattinson is excellent playing Neil, The Protagonists handler. He's the type of person who appriciates chaos and likes it when things don't make sense. Pattinson brought a rugged and enigmatic charm to the role while nailing some
Elizabeth Debicki is also vulnerable and lovely playing Kat even thought she's basically playing the same character that she played in The Night Manager. Intelligent, intuitive and manipulative with a dry, gallows sense of humour Kat is someone who's use to getting what she wants in life but she's being held captive by Sator.
If John David Washington is the Protagonist of the film, then Kenneth Branagh's Andrei Sator is definately the films antgagonist. Both of them believe that they're right, Branagh brought the right amount of menace required for this part. Much like Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight, Nolan doesn't concern himself with the motive of Sator, he's just a destructive presence and how does the world respond to that. ruthless and egotistical Sator maybe intelligent but he's also capable of careless risk taking. He has a point of view that has a certain logic to it which is control
Michael Caine also has a small role in the film playing British Intelligence officer, Sir Michael Crosby. A possible homage to his roles in 60s spy films such as The Ipcress File.
Clemence Poesy, Himesh Patel, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Dimple Kapadia and Martin Donovan round out the films cast with
5/5.
The Anonymous Critic.
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