Tenet (2020)

Directed by: Christopher Nolan | 150 minutes | action, science fiction | Actors: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Martin Donovan, Fiona Dourif, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Himesh Patel, Clémence Poésy, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Michael Caine, Kenneth Branagh

The 2020 film year is already memorable, but unfortunately not for the right reasons. Due to the corona pandemic, hardly any new films can be made and the doors of cinemas in many countries are closed. Filmmakers try to sell their already finished films to the public in creative ways; because people are at home en masse, video on demand (vod) is interesting for small titles. But also major film companies are now succumbing to streaming their brand new films; for example, Disney is putting the live action version of ‘Mulan’ (2020) on its own streaming service Disney+, so that their already paying customers can watch the film from the comfort of their home for an extra fee. The latest James Bond film ‘No Time to Die’ (2020) was previously shifted from April to November, although it is questionable whether the virus will be under control enough by then that all theaters in the US can open again. . No, then Christopher Nolan. The British filmmaker shows guts by releasing his long-awaited sci-fi spectacle ‘Tenet’ (2020) ‘just’ in the summer where possible (although the release date has been postponed a few times). Nolan as savior of the movie summer of 2020? It just might, because ‘Tenet’ offers exactly the visual spectacle that many people come to the cinema for.

For those who are disappointed that ‘No Time to Die’ has not yet been released, we have good news: ‘Tenet’ is in fact Nolan’s version of a James Bond cracker, complete with espionage elements, a classic villain with Eastern European accent, country hop, a variety of different modes of transport and spectacular action scenes. But where the Bond films have gained in depth in recent years, Nolan remains on the surface here. Sure, there’s a lot of scientific terminology thrown around – so much so that you quickly lose track, but more on that later – and there’s even a Q-esque tech (played here by Clémence Poésy) on the scene trying to play out the hero. explain what is going on. That hero is played by John David Washington (indeed the son of, who made such a good appearance in Spike Lee’s 2018 ‘BlacKkKlansman’), but the fact that the American CIA agent he played wasn’t even given a name (he is once called ‘The Protagonist’, and that’s about it), says right away that in ‘Tenet’ the characters are of minor importance. Nolan’s films are not really known for their in-depth characters anyway; a common criticism is that they are cold and distant and that they only exceptionally manage to stir emotions. Fortunately, he always manages to attract excellent actors, making it less noticeable that they play one-dimensional characters.

At the beginning of ‘Tenet’ we learn that World War III is about to break out, a battle that will be ‘even worse than a nuclear holocaust’. It’s up to our nameless protagonist to see this disaster happen. The main weapon of the opponent is that they can move against time for a short time. So no time travel, but inversion or reversal. The wealthy Russian arms dealer Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh is having a blast) seems to know more about it, but it’s not easy to get close to him. Our hero plays it through Sator’s unhappy wife Kat (the tall but somewhat colorless Elizabeth Debicki), who actually wants to get rid of her husband but is afraid that she will never see her son again. The two hit a deal; Kat helps our protagonist to get close to Sator, making sure nothing will happen to her or her son. Our hero discovers that he must get a precious material out of the wrong hands, and that mission takes him and his mysterious, quintessentially British undercover colleague Neil (Robert Pattinson, on a roll) to a heavily guarded storage depot at Oslo airport, among other things. the beautiful and sun-drenched Amalfi Coast of Italy and a dizzying ring road in Estonia.

We won’t tell you more about the story, but prepare yourself for an action spectacle in which time, and the different dimensions of time, play the leading role. For those who hadn’t noticed: the title ‘Tenet’ is a palindrome and the film is, in fact. In between acts, attempts are made to give a scientific explanation, but as soon as Clémence Poésy in her white coat makes an attempt to do so and sprinkles with terms such as inversion, entropy and temporal pincer movement, we have already lost her. She says it literally: ‘Don’t try to understand it, but to feel it’. That actually applies to the entire movie. So don’t be afraid if you lose the thread, as the story progresses you will automatically see what Nolan means with all those scientific terms. Because that’s where ‘Tenet’ excels: the blistering action scenes that will amaze you every time. What is also ingenious: it lets things and events that you cannot place at first fall into place at a later stage. The moment you realize that, gives a pleasant sensation. This is also typically a film that you have to watch more than once to understand everything. And we mainly mean visually; the terminology here is many times more complex than in ‘Inception’ and ‘Interstellar’ so let go of the fact that you want to fully understand that, otherwise you will not be able to enjoy this visual artwork by Nolan and his permanent Dutch director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema . And let’s not forget the impressive music of Oscar winner Ludwig Göransson (‘Black Panther’, 2018), who ‘substitutes’ for Hans Zimmer.

Like all other Nolan films, the emotion remains on the surface in ‘Tenet’ and the characters never actually become people of flesh and blood. As much as we’d like to, the cast is one to feast on (Nolan’s lucky charm Michael Caine is back again, of course). So where we do feel the inversion of time at a given moment, unfortunately that does not happen with the characters. Our protagonist is risking his life for Kat, but why? There is no chemistry of any kind. Cool Debicki might not be the right woman for this role, but who’s to say it would work with a warmer-looking actress? It is simply inherent in Nolan’s work that the emotional connection with the characters is hard to find. That was already the case in ‘Inception’ (although DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb was a lot more complex and layered than John David Washington here); in ‘Interstellar’ Nolan tried, but it still felt a bit contrived. In ‘Dunkirk’ (2017), which is very far from all his other films in style and theme, you see Nolan at his most human. So he could…

‘Tenet’ is presented as the blockbuster that should save the film summer of 2020 – perhaps even the entire film year. That might well work. To fully immerse yourself in the astonishing visual spectacle that Nolan throws at you here, you should definitely see this film in the cinema (preferably on an IMAX or 70mm screen). We take those flat characters for granted, because the action scenes make up for a lot. This is what you go to the cinema for! And if you can, watch it more than once, because you’ll get even more genius finds out of it. Don’t be distracted by the complicated terms that fly around your ears, everything will eventually fall into place on its own.