Beginning
director – Christopher Nolan
To emit – John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, Kenneth Branagh
You should be instantly suspicious of anyone who claims to have understood Tenet after only seeing him once. Heck, you should doubt their every word even if they say they’ve seen it three times. Enigmatic to the extreme and outrageously dense, Christopher Nolan’s latest sci-fi show leaves you with the unwavering feeling that you were 15 minutes late for the screening.
Like the director’s previous hits, Inception and, to a lesser degree, Interstellar, Tenet demands repeat visits, but more importantly, it doesn’t encourage them. The idea of having to sit down and receive a lecture, Nolan’s preferred form of exposure, doesn’t seem all that compelling at the moment. Although I can’t imagine never trying again when the world calms down.
Watch the Tenet trailer here
The stakes are astronomical: a mysterious new technology represents a threat to all existence; there are rumors of a Third World War. But here’s the catch: the technology hasn’t been invented yet. However, it will be in the future and the CIA has found out.
What unfolds is essentially Nolan’s version of a Cold War spy thriller: less James Bond, more John le Carré. Incidentally, despite having a significantly longer range, Tenet is tonally very similar to Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a movie that I, despite having seen twice, couldn’t tell you the first. They even share the same cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema.
Requires unusual engagement from the audience. Unlike Inception, or even Dunkirk, unconventionally structured films that took him for a walk, Tenet, on several occasions, leaves him in the dust. And then, to make matters worse, he scolds you for not being able to keep up.
John David Washington and Elizabeth Debicki in a frame from Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. (AP)
As always, Nolan’s images, shot with the lethal combination of 70mm and IMAX film, are impossible to fault. The 747 heist sequence is, as advertised, staggering. And the promise of another flawless action sequence is usually enough to get you through some of the movie’s most inscrutable moments. That said, Tenet would have been infinitely nicer if Nolan had resisted the urge to explain the mechanics of his world at all times.
While it is understandable for him to treat these small details with the utmost seriousness, considering the many years he has spent on the project, Nolan confuses seriousness with sincerity. For him, these ideas are based on reality, but for us, they could well be a fantasy. Being constantly told how Tenet’s engine works is like Peter Jackson explaining the metallurgy behind the One Ring: unnecessary.
Too many times the Nolan feels compelled to show his passion for all things nerdy and pauses the picture to offer an (often muffled) exposition on quantum physics and other things. It’s like having Nolan’s brother constantly whisper in your ear while you watch one of the filmmaker’s movies, but this time, Nolan himself is the know-it-all boyfriend. Talk about mind-blowing plots.
Offering exposure, for example, is practically all that is required of Clémence Poésy, who appears in only one scene. She explains to John David Washington’s ‘Protagonist’, that’s the name of her character, the concept of ‘inverted entropy’, which allows certain objects to move backwards in time. This begs the question: if objects can travel through time, so can people, right? Hmm.
John David Washington and Robert Pattinson in a still from Tenet.
The guy who will have a monopoly on this technology in the future is a Russian oligarch named Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh playing the same character he played in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit). To end the dying Sator’s cowardly plan, which involves taking the world with him, the protagonist enlists the help of Sator’s estranged wife (future Princess Diana Elizabeth Debicki), a handler named Neil (a fabulously dressed Robert Pattinson), and the arms dealer Priya (Dimple Kapadia, in a bigger role than you might expect).
Despite never having won an Oscar, Nolan is one of the few superstar directors in the world and undoubtedly one of the most successful. Any doubts he had regarding his popularity in India were cleared up when Viral Bhayani slapped him when he arrived at Mumbai Terminal 2 last year, during a week of filming. And as brief as Tenet’s Mumbai segments are, it’s undeniably exciting to see Washington outside of the iconic Cafe Mondegar, and later, a pair of Mumbai Police Scorpios in action outside a Breach Candy skyscraper. Even the spoonful of exposure that Priya shoves down Protagonist’s throat (and ours) is easier to swallow with Colaba’s Causeway in the background.
Also Read: The Devil All The Time Movie Review – Robert Pattinson Is Divine In Netflix’s Star-studded But Eerily Gloomy Movie
But these moments are few and far between. Nolan’s cinema has often been criticized in the past for being too dispassionate, but despite what it may seem on the surface, all of his films have a beating heart at their core. Without the father-daughter relationship, Interstellar wouldn’t work. Likewise, take Cobb’s quest to reunite with his kids from Inception, and all you’d have left is a bunch of mind-blowing visuals and a great score from Hans Zimmer.
Tenet, despite Sator’s potentially moving plot, is soulless. It’s ironic for a movie in which a character literally says the words: “Don’t try to understand it, feel it.”
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The author tweets @RohanNaahar
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