Tenet: the breakdown part 1; a breath of fresh air for the thinker and film lover

We live in twilight world and there are no friends at dusk..

I never really knew why this particular quote sticks with me. Maybe because i think it sounds like a cool movie catch phrase, you know kinda like

To infinite and beyond

Or

May the force be with you

By the way those of you who have no idea where the last two quotes come from, you are either a boomer or gen z [nothing bad in itself but hey you know... you ain’t golden that’s all I'm saying]. Today people the film i will attempt to deconstruct if you haven't read it from the title or guessed it from the top quote is what I consider to be the best movie of 2020; ladies and gentlemen the eleventh film by Christopher Nolan... Tenet.

source Some people consider this film a modern day masterpiece [and let's be honest here it really is]while others think of it as another big budget high concept garbage that was a destined to flop because it was released in the middle of the pandemic. However whatever your perceptions are about this film, you cannot deny one thing and that is this film was a cinematic spectacle that served both lovers and non-lovers alike with top notch cinematography and entertainment despite the complexity of it's story. I remember watching the trailer of this film and thinking ‘Welp here’s another big budget Christopher Nolan Hollywood film, I wonder what crazy concept we'll see in this on..…….. wait what??.. did that car just flip backward in forward moving time??? Wait is that Denzel's kid and Eddy from twilight.. what in the hell is even going on here ohh you got my attention now!!’.

So yeah I had high expectations seeing this one plus I was really excited seeing John David Washington and Robert Pattinson together in a spy action thriller film directed by Nolan. I thought of their casting combination as an unusal pair [I mean let's be real the guy from blackkklansman and Edward from twilight together in a spy thriller, c’mon] neither of whom had ever worked on anything like the genre of this film; I was very interested in seeing how their duo would work and they did not disappoint at all. This film is once again proof that Nolan is undeniable one of the greatest film-makers of our time in my opinion. In an age of movies where studios are more interested in releasing big budget CGI noise filled with political ideology and left wing propaganda [I’m looking at you gun powder milkshake] instead of original based beautiful stories based on themes that are relatable to everyone; it was so refreshing to see a film that featured a black man as the lead without making the story centered around the color of his skin. It felt so exhilarating seeing a film that had no trace of political ideology in its story or heavy over emphasized CGI, a film who's only focus was on telling a universal story that affects everyone rather than the story of a marginalized group. It wasn’t trying to promote the westernism, or race, or gender or sexuality, or ethnic minorities. The story didn’t make the relationship between the main and supporting character a romantic/sexual one because it wanted to be ‘all inclusive’. Nolan understood that such a relationship would serve no purpose to the core message he was trying to pass in the story and it would only cause a dysfunction within the story and amongst the audience.

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I did a little research on him [and by research I mean I spent 2 minutes on Wikipedia glancing through his biography] and discovered that he is a film maker who focuses more epistemological and metaphysical core themes than rather than socio-political themes. The fact that he managed to pull off making such a complex concept into a film that's both interesting, enjoyable and entertaining to watch is a true testament of his expertise understanding in the art and psychology of film making. Was it difficult to comprehend in the first watch? Yes. Did it require me watching the film three times while consulting various YouTube explanation videos to properly understand the plot? True.. Did watching the film leave me satisfied, elated and entertained after seeing it and did I understand and appreciate the film a whole lot better after I watched the explanation videos on YouTube? You already know the answer to that. So today I will attempt to discuss the central theme of this film at length in this article and it will span into two or three parts. In it I will focus on certain key areas I believe will help us get a firmer grasp, a better understanding of this film. I will be looking at

1. The premise and central theme of the plot
2. The opening scene of the film
3. The key plot points that define the story
4. The Katherine Barton subplot aka the picture of Goya
5. The dialogue
6. The story.

So starting of the part one will contain the premise and the opening scene, let’s get to it shall we.

The Premise and central theme of the Plot. source

Our story follows our protagonist a CIA agent who is caught in between a temporal war between the two factions of people who are able to manipulate the flow of time, one faction trying to annihilate the present while the other tries to stop them. It sounds simple narratives but quite difficult when you try to apply it into a conceivable story. This is because the concept of time travel and time manipulation is one that’s not easy to pull off in film making even though there are some notable films that have done a pretty decent job [Avengers Endgame, back to the future, the Terminators 1, 2 and 3 you know the lot]. Tenet however in my opinion is the one that has most successfully managed to pull it off in the best way possible and that is because this it focused on trying to make the concept as believable as it possibly could. Instead of time travel as we've seen it in other films, it opted for time inversion and no not time reversal either but time inversion. To help you understand the difference between time reversal and time inversion let’s use the illustration of rewinding a film. When you are watch a video and you want to go back you rewind the film, that is you go back to a certain time stamp in the video to witness an event that happened all over again. You cannot change what the characters do in the video or change the it's outcome when you rewind it because it is a fixed outcome. However if you could rewind the film and alter the actions of the characters thereby changing the outcome then you would have reversed the video. The conflict between these two perceptions of time is what defines the world of tenet. It is an live adaptation of the grandfather paradox.

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One way or the other humanity in the future has found a way to rewind time, the way you rewind a video and people are now divided into two factions, the people who believe that going back in time to destroy of present will save the future and the other group of people who want to stop then; they are called tenet. What we witness in the final scene of this film is the epicenter, the peak of this battle. This is Nolan's attempt at dramatizing this paradox and theorizing that time would eventually remain unchanged, he does this by giving the victory of our protagonist [the forward flow time] over our antagonist [the reversal of time] and just like Neil said, everything that will happen has happened. I mean it’s a very practical closely realistic time story when you think about it critically. If time manipulation were to ever be possible, contact and conflict between the past, present and future would be inevitable.

source At one singular point in time, the past and future will collide in the present and there will be conflict; who knows how that would turn out? This paradox holds central message of this story, for while the antagonist represents trying to undo everything in one nihilistic, our protagonist represents moving on and continue despite what we might preserve as a past mistake because the past shouldn't be changed for what has happened was meant to happen an what is going to happen to is meant to happen. The film is set in modern times and understanding the plot requires a recognition and comprehension of certain key plot points [hence you watching this film three times to make some sense of what's really going on] which also constitute the body if this story which in turn helps you formulates the end of this film. More of this in the part two of this article

The Opening scene This film has a very unique introduction scene. Here check it out for yourself down below and tell me what you see.

So I consider this scene as very unique and different because certain things stuck out to me. First thing that really caught my attention was the background music. It started out so tense like the kind you see in the beginning of a Mission Impossible film but then the scenery in the opening shot looked normal and calm, not until we get to the next shot that our uneasiness raised once again when we see the shot of suspicious looking men dressed in tactical gear listening to the police on the radio; one of them says in Russian or Ukrainian I dunno ‘wake up the American’ and camera focuses on a man in tactical gear who does this cool trick with a bullet and a gun. Subconsciously the mind of the viewer is made here to recognize this man as the central character of the film, and the reason why they use this here is to give the audience someone to focus on in the midst of the building tension of the first two minutes in order to sort of give you someone to anchor on because the craziness of the ride you are about to go on. BOOM… All of a sudden, the music of the uneasy strings playing is cut abruptly into explosive chaos when suddenly armed men burst into the scene shooting sporadically into the air, smashing instruments and assaulting people.

source There is chaos everywhere and we the viewers are confused, uneasy and are unaware of what’s going on, we are put in a position where we subconsciously but desperately try to grasp any information we see on the screen that would help us make sense of the crazy situation we find ourselves. The director takes full advantage of our suspense and uneasiness by focusing our attention to our protagonist. We see that despite all that’s happening, the attacking men, the screaming people, the invading police and the gases being used to knock people out, we see that our protagonist is not interested in any of this. Instead we see he is focused on securing a particular guest whom we discovered is a secret agent working with us who’s has information about an item which we latter learn is a part of a nuclear device [quality use of dialogue by the way more on that in the part two of this article]. When we hear this interaction happen and we see our protagonist secure the package, we immediately realize what’s going on and It becomes obvious to us that all the parties involved in this chaos of this opening scene are all in search of this particular item.

source Immediately we see this, we attach importance to this mystery device that we have absolutely no idea about simply because register it as the reason for the conflict we see in the opening scene. The reason why I believe this is genius because [spoilers ahead] we do not see this device being used to destroy anything or anyone as the film progresses however this device hold so much relevance to the story because we are shown through the dialogue, conflicts and actions that this device generates all through-out the film that everybody’s life depends on it. This device is made to be one of the core parts of this film but not the most important part of this film, which is why I think this film doesn’t fall apart. Alright so back to the opening scene, the fact that our protagonist has gained this device lets us know that he is in control of the situation and this puts us at a partial sense of ease. Remember through his dialogue and his actions we know what’s going on however, there is still chaos happening all around us and there are still things that are happening that we have no idea about but the core of the situation us within our grasp and we can run with it. We then follow him, into his character defining moment, the scene where he decides to save everyone in the opera house even though it is not his mission.

source The act which would eventually be the reason why he is captured and almost tortured to death is there to show us two things about our protagonist. The first is that he is a man of extreme [I don’t know if this is the proper adjective to use here but anyway] focus, willing to do whatever it takes and two, except for taking or involving innocent people. We see him show these two characteristics in several occasions in the movie. Now I will talk more on this when I discuss the Katherine Barton subplot headline in the part two of this article. This opening scene already establishes who our protagonist is, his goal in this film and the confusion that is about to surround us as we go further in this film. The events in this climactic opening scene serves as the catalyst for the plot of this film and Nolan choice to start it on a high note is crucial to why this story worked.

Alright that’s enough I’m hungry and tired right now and I need to get something to eat. I’ll end this one here and continue with the part two next week. Please leave a comment down below about what you thought of this movie and let me know if this article helped you understand this film a little bit better. Until I see you next week.. Adios