*backwards speaking*
Sorry mate, I literally can't understand a
word you're saying, but I'm sure it's fine,
it sounds great, it's probably alright.
Tenet, the new film from Christopher Nolan,
is out in cinemas now.
Well, in some places.
Due to COVID, cinemas remain closed in places
all around the world; but for now, they’re
open in the UK, and I got to go out and see
a new movie for the first time in 5 months.
John David Washington is a spy working for…
someone?
The CIA?
After dying on the job, he is reawoken and
sent on on a new, ill-defined mission, seeking
out the truth behind a single word: Tenet.
That’s literally all I can say without spoilers;
if you’re continuing beyond this point then
fair warning to you.
I recommend seeing the film fresh, so if you
haven’t seen it yet, maybe don’t watch
this bit, no matter how keen you are.
Right.
As it turns out, Tenet is a password into
the shadowy world of a temporal Cold War,
where nefarious forces from the future reach
back into mankind’s history, manipulating
certain forces like malign Russian arms dealer
Alexei Sator into doing their dirty work.
It’s the Protagonist’s role- that’s
literally what Washington’s character is
called- to fight back.
And forward.
Last pun, I promise.
All of this is communicated extremely quickly
in a very rushed first half hour.
From an opera raid in Kiev, to a tower block
in Mumbai, to a restaurant in London, meeting
new faces and learning new names all the time,
a huge amount of information is crammed into
this short period.
My screening also didn’t have great sound,
which exacerbated that feeling of being a
bit lost in the story.
Then, the film hits its stride with a fantastic
setpiece heist in Oslo, and begins to settle
into a groove.
Here you watch a 747 ram into a building as
a mere distraction, and you start to remember
that Nolan is a filmmaker with a fantastic
eye for scope.
I’ve said before that setpieces are a bit
of a lost art in modern blockbusters, and
i think Nolan’s work is the real exception
to that rule.
He seems to know it; much like Inception’s
confusing layers and timescales mask a relatively
straightforward heist story, Tenet’s complicated
chronology is hung around three big set-pieces,
the Oslo heist, the Tallinn ambush and the
final battle, which helps the viewer to keep
everything in order.
And boy do you need it, because I have to
say, I had no idea what was going on in a
lot of this film.
I think I’m a pretty attentive film viewer,
I read a lot of sci-fi, and I have seen all
of Nolan’s other films, but I was totally
lost about 30 minutes into this.
I started thinking about all the times that
I’ve spoken to people who feel like Nolan
is so into his ideas that one day he’ll
disappear up his own arse.
Maybe that day has come, I thought to myself,
sat in the cinema with my mask on fogging
up my glasses.
But then, just as I was losing patience, the
film’s reverse chronology started to kick
into gear during the Oslo heist, and things
started to fall into place.
For me, that moment of doubt was a very wobbly
moment indeed, and it means that ultimately
Tenet’s not my favourite bit of Nolan work.
It treads a tightrope between tremendously
clever and isolatingly self-indulgent, and
it manages to stay upright; but boy does it
like looking down at the drop.
This problem began for me pretty early on,
when Clemence Posey had the unenviable task
of explaining the central conceit to the audience.
Luckily this section also contains a good
guide for the rest of the viewing experience.
After showing the protagonist the effects
of reverse chronology gunshots and talking
through what an inverted causality is like,
she tells him:
‘Don’t try to understand it, feel it’.
And the success of the film for any individual
viewer will rely on their ability to accept
that central rule… that *links hands* Tenet,
if you will.
And the success of the film for any individual
viewer will rely on their ability to accept
that central rule… that *links hands* Tenet,
if you will.
I decided I would try and consciously do just
that- just feel it, rather than worry about
understanding it.
I felt confused, paranoid, a bit adrift and
unsure who to follow.
And strangely enough, that reminded me of
another film experience- watching Tomas Alfredsson’s
2011 film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Which coincidentally is also shot by Hoyte
van Hoytema.
That film also chucks a lot of plots at you
in the opening 30 minutes, and expects you
to do a lot of legwork to keep up.
It casts its lead in a murky shadow world,
where allegiances are unclear and the enemy
seems to have the upper hand.
And it is shot through with paranoia, as any
good cold war film is.
So despite all the obvious comparisons between
Tenet and Bond, with its globetrotting and
sharp dude in a suit, what it really reminded
me of is le Carre.
It’s got the requisite brutalist architecture,
with an opera house covered in cyrillic and
secret bases inside a wind farm.
Even sunny Italy is offset with industrial
areas in Oslo and Tallinn.
It’s not just the style, though; for Nolan,
all of the tricksy chronology of Tenet is
a shorthand into the stale beer world of statecraft.
Plans carried out by unwitting pawns are needed
to keep info from the future; paranoia is
justified, as only the mere hints of a war
to come are available; and stripped of evidence,
spies operate simply on the strength of their
own convictions.
Very clever stuff, and well suited to a Nolan
protagonist after all.
For me, all of Nolan’s leading men- and
they are all men aren’t they- are fanatics
of a sort, hellbent on a single goal through
pure exercise of their own will.
In Interstellar, it’s the will to reach
beyond Earth; in the Dark Knight films, it’s
Bruce Wayne’s drive to avenge his parents.
Here, it takes on an almost religious tone,
an act of immense faith: the protagonist’s
job is to fight a war without obvious participants
or skirmishes.
Although events seem to be set in stone, it’s
his drive that ultimately creates the events
he’s already experienced; as Neil says,
‘we’re just an expression of fate in the
mechanics of the world’.
And, putting all that analysis and, y’know,
actually understanding the plot to one side-
and I am overegging it a bit, it mostly does
make sense even if some of the finer causality
is beyond me- what you have is a ripping yarn
spy movie.
Big explosions, car chases, multiple heists
and buddy comedy between charming dapper dudes.
John David Washington proves yet again that
he is a star, effortlessly commanding the
film with great passion and a light touch
of humour; Elizabeth Debicki takes a role
that could be a little limp and turns it into
something all-together harder edged.
Robert Pattinson slides off a run of intense
drama roles to play something a little lighter,
with a Transatlantic accent and slight foppishness.
All those boys in the Batman trailer comments
surprised that ‘the guy from Twilight can
act’ will have their worlds rocked by this
(and watch The Lighthouse yah philestines).
On top of all that is Hoyte van Hoytema’s
sterling cinematography, less emotive than
Interstellar but as steely as Dunkirk; underneath
it all is Ludwig Gorannsson’s bombastic
score, reading like a more electronic Zimmer
soundtrack with plenty of playful reversed-
reversible- palindromic elements.
All of which is to say, Tenet is a good film,
and if you can focus on feeling it rather
than immediately understanding it, it is tremendously
entertaining, and most (if not all) becomes
clear soon enough.
That’s right, like a fox on a trampoline,
I was perplexed by the experience but ultimately,
I enjoyed it.
That’s it from me, but with a movie as wild
as this one I know there’s going to be lots
to discuss, so let’s have a chat in the
comments below.
And, while you’re here, consider doing a
subscribe, leaving a like, and maybe sharing
this with your mates or posting it on your
social media.
Every little bit of engagement helps boost
the channel.
Have a good one, and I’ll see you next time.
Bye for now.
*backwards speaking*
Hey Will, just wanted to check in with you-
I think this backwards bit maybe doesn't work,
so maybe we shouldn't have done it- will do
it?- does that make sense?
