REVIEW / FILM REVIEW – Christopher Nolan returns with “Tenet” to a spectacular and complex new work. A spy film where John David Washington and Robert Pattinson must save the world from a danger linked to time. Review WITHOUT SPOILER but which presents the main lines of the plot.
Tenet, a James Bond facing time
For a little over ten years now (The Dark Knight, 2008) each new film by Christopher Nolan is an event. Each time, the British filmmaker has known vary genres and surprise your audience through new concepts. But, this year the wait around Tenet is perhaps stronger than ever. Because with a Covid-19 pandemic that has had an impact on film productions, directly damaging theaters, Tenet, despite several postponements, is positioned as the savior of cinema. The film that will bring back the public in droves (which we hope). A beautiful symbolism as Christopher Nolan still embodies the possible union between the general public and the cinephile public.
For this, Nolan offers this time A spy film almost old-fashioned. In fact, we are talking about a CIA agent (John David Washington) informed that the world is in danger because of Sator (Kenneth Branagh), a rich Russian, arms dealer, and married to Kat (Elizabeth debicki), a tall blonde typical of Hitchcock heroines. Moreover, from this point of view, Elizabeth Debicki excelle. Charismatic and with an undeniable presence – we note the audacity of Nolan to highlight his meter ninety in front of a John David Washington of “only” 1.75 m -, the actress carries with her all the tragedy of the film. The agent will therefore get closer to her to be able to meet Sator, and everything seems to unfold. in the pure tradition of James Bond.
Except that the filmmaker adds an element: here, the danger comes from time. Or rather, objects and people withreverse entropy. Concretely, this requires taking a reverse point of view on things; drop an object, and it falls. In inversion, it comes back to your hand. A science at first glance complex to say the least, which becomes more and more concrete over the course of the feature film. But basically, the why and how doesn’t really matter. As one of the protagonists rightly said to the hero, we must not try to understand, we must accept this observation. In this, Christopher Nolan fully assumes the use of a Hitchcock MacGuffin – a pure and simple pretext for the development of the screenplay, or in the case of Nolan, for staging proposals that make it a perfect movie for the big screen.
A film summons for Nolan
From then on, the director proves that he does not need to film titanic fights with mess explosions and massive destruction to be spectacular. As was already the case with his Batman trilogy, Nolan remains human-centric in Tenet and always manages to get sensational. Under his leadership, the “simple” climbing of a building using a rubber band (announcement of the reversal in progress) or the armed intervention in an opera taken hostage (a superb sequence) become capable events. to tape us to the seat. The highlight of the show being reached in the last half hour for a real explosion of creativity obtained by this famous reverse time.
By clues hidden in the film, Christopher Nolan therefore refers to the Sator Square, formed by the Latin palindrome SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS. Once the concept is assimilated, fascination takes over as Nolan recites his cinema. Although less personal in his treatment of the main character, he still finds an entrance to emotion in a subtle way, whether it is through the life portrayed by Kat or the evolution of Neil (Robert pattinson, excellent in action man / alter ego of Nolan). And if with The Dark Knight he was digging at John Ford or Michael Mann, we find in Tenet a classic Hollywood period, while feeling the director still impacted by his time.
Therefore, under its air of pure and “simple” blockbuster, Tenet is perhaps the most successful Nolan film, bringing together his different obsessions; terrorist presence, end of the world announced, ecological reminder, future generation facing fathers (and grandfathers), place of a protagonist in a story … A film sum which, if it does not mark the spirits in the immediate as much asInception or Interstellar, will certainly benefit from posterity and multiple viewings that will allow Tenet to reveal all its secrets.
Tenet by Christopher Nolan, released on Aug 26, 2020. Above the trailer.
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