Premise

This is a kind of a misnomer because when it comes to a Christopher Nolan film, the premise can be one in many or many in one. Or it could end up being something you never thought it could be in the first place. Tenet, which is a palindromic title (that is, it reads the same both forwards and backwards), focuses on a protagonist, referred to as “The Protagonist” (played by John David Washington), the member of a secret international organisation called Tenet, tasked with saving the world from annihilation at the hands of a Russian gazillionaire called Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh) who has access to a nuclear weapon.

Tenet occupies the familiar Nolan template of a potential blockbuster packed with complex and mind-bending ideas. The film examines themes like time travel and focuses on a kind of technology of the future where objects can have their entropy reversed and move backwards through time.

Roots

Nolan has reportedly been working on the film’s ideas, both small and big, over the last 20 years, with Tenet being brought to its present form over the last six-seven years. Special-effects supervisor Scott R. Fisher watched films and documentaries pertaining to World War II to find reference points for realism, while theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, a Nolan collaborator on his earlier film Interstellar, was consulted on concepts of time and quantum physics.

John David Washington with Dimple Kapadia Still from the film

Names

Led by John David Washington, the cast boasts names like Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Clemence Poesy and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, besides Branagh and Nolan favourite Michael Caine. The film, of course, marks Dimple Kapadia’s Hollywood debut.
As is expected from a Nolan film, the crew working on Tenet is top-notch. Hoyte van Hoytema (who has also shot Nolan films Interstellar and Dunkirk) used a combination of 70 mm film and IMAX to shoot the film. Ludwig Goransson stepped in to score the music after Nolan’s frequent collaborator Hans Zimmer opted out to work on Dune. Jennifer Lame, who has made a name for herself working in Noah Baumbach’s films, does editor duties here, replacing Nolan favourite
Lee Smith.

Intrigue

We know this much about Tenet now because the film has already been watched by audiences in a large number of countries, including the UK, where theatres have opened after being shut for months on account of the
Covid-19 pandemic. No such luck for the actors though, with Nolan choosing to make them read the script in a locked room when they were signed on. While Robert Pattinson was only allowed to read the script once, it took John David Washington around five hours to finish reading it because he kept flipping back and forth (true to the film’s theme)
“in pure amazement”.

Michael Caine, who has been a part of eight Nolan films, wasn’t even allowed to read the entire script, being given his scenes to read just before shooting. Even days before the film’s release, the 87-year-old actor confessed he had no idea what the film was about. Unsurprisingly, the working title of Tenet was ‘Merry Go Round’.

Christopher Nolan on the Mumbai sets of Tenet Sourced by the Telegraph

Process

Tenet, which with a budget between $200–225 million, stands as Nolan’s most expensive original project, was filmed in seven countries, including Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Norway, India, the UK and the US. Unlike other films of this genre, Tenet has not been shot with green screens, but has used practical effects. That includes the ‘inversion’ scenes, for which Nolan shot each sequence twice: once moving forward, and once with the actors doing everything backward.

John David Washington with Robert Pattinson Still from the film

Reviews and reactions

Eagerly looked forward to as the big summer success of the year (in pre-virus times), Tenet now has the messianic responsibility of saving the big, tent pole film (in the times of a raging pandemic). But early reviews, built on the back of humongous expectations, have been mixed. While most have hailed Tenet for its “visual dazzle” and “mind-bending premise”, thus sealing Nolan’s “complete control over medium and spectacle”, the film has also been described using not-so-complimentary terms like “exhausting” and “joyless”, with one review going as far as saying, “The film left my head before I took off my face mask.”

But if the opening weekend collections in most countries are any indication (the projected earnings were in the range of $25-30 million) , then Tenet is well on its way to getting the world back into cinemas.

Well, Tom Cruise caught it in a UK cinema on Tuesday. His verdict? “Big Movie. Big Screen. Loved it.” The biggest movie star has spoken.

I am looking forward to Tenet because... Tell t2@abp.in