Cinema – “Tenet”, the blockbuster to the rescue of dark rooms

It is “THE” film of the end of summer: “Tenet”, a clever blockbuster between espionage and science fiction, signed by box office prince Christopher Nolan, is expected as the messiah by theater operators depressed by the health context.

A “patron saint”

This 200 million dollar blockbuster, after several postponements, is the only one of its kind to dare to release now. Disney, for example, preferred to skip the big screen box for its flagship product, “Mulan”, redirected to platforms.

But Warner Bros. trusts its champion: the films of the author who reboosted “Batman” with his trilogy have grossed more than $ 4 billion.

“Tenet” will be visible from August 26, not in the United States but in more than 70 countries, including most of those in Europe, not to mention Canada, Australia and South Korea. For the United States, Warner Bros. has left a few more days and is also counting on the important Labor Day holiday weekend, with a release on Thursday, September 3.

To the question “Will this film save the cinema in 2020?”, The BBC responds in the affirmative in a recent analysis, portraying Nolan as a “patron saint” of cinemas. The creator of “Inception” and “Interstellar” is aware of his weight in the film industry, as evidenced by his recent column in the Washington Post. “The last few weeks have reminded us, if there was a need for it, that there are much more important things in life than going to the movies,” he writes. But when we think about all that the cinema offers us, it is perhaps not that useless.

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“Jump in the screen”

“Tenet” has everything to fulfill its mission. The film’s script hook is reflected in its title, a palindrome, that is to say a word that can be read in both directions.

Either the treatment that Nolan reserves for the characters in his film, who will be able to advance normally in the plot or go back in time to try to be one step ahead of the other.

What dynamite, with this touch of fantastic, an otherwise classic plot of a secret agent – John David Washington, son of Denzel, seen in “BlacKkKlansman” – at the heels of an evil spirit – Kenneth Branagh, chilling – who threatens humanity.

Without revolutionizing the genres his film tackles with passion for 2:30, Nolan pushes the cursor very far. For the espionage section, there is a scent of “James Bond”. Nolan confessed Wednesday in a world press conference by interposed screens – Covid-19 obliges – to have been marked by “The spy who loved me”, a “Bond” period Roger Moore. “It’s the first one I saw, at 7, with the impression that I could jump into the screen to go to the four corners of the world, it is this feeling that I wanted to rediscover”.

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“Living in the middle of a nightmare”

“Tenet”, shot in seven different countries, respects the specifications. But the Nolan touch is a black hero, something that the decision-makers of the franchise of the famous secret agent in the service of his Majesty have never attempted so far.

The cast is also impeccable. Robert Pattinson perfectly plays an ambiguous character, who as he rejoices “loves chaos and living in the middle of a nightmare”. And Elizabeth Debicki once again dons the habit of a scorned woman who regains her freedom, as in “The Widows” by Steve McQueen. “Her strength comes from her journey to resilience,” the actress recounts nicely.

For the pure action, there are echoes of the explosions of “Heat” or even of “Matrix”, references however taken of speed by the narrative device of a last insane half hour.

Basically, the American-English director, who submitted his script to scientists to stick to theories on the march of time, is not the first to think about the consequences on the present of a manipulation of the past. “Terminator” or “Edge Of Tomorrow” (with Tom Cruise) have already done it. But here, the time bridges are more numerous and more porous.

AFPE/NXP

Posted: 08/21/2020, 6:51 p.m.–