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Hollywood Film Review

Johnson Thomas

Going Loopy with TIME

Film: Tenet

Cast: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Dimple Kapadia, Himesh Patel, Clémence Poésy Denzel Smith      

Director: Christopher Nolan

Rating: * * *

Runtime: 150 mins

 

 

Mind bending has become Christopher Nolan’s hallmark and with Tenet he not only plays parallel and surround with thoughts but he also goes loopy with Time. Tenet is probably Nolan’s most ambitious (in terms of complexity) with a degree of difficulty that even auteur filmmakers might find too challenging to take on. Nolan has scripted this time-twisting sci-fi fantasy (am calling it fantasy because we don’t really know that this can happen in real time) by using tech tricks and scientific throws like loops, bridges, parallel universes and time inversion to ensnare our minds in a tale that has the protagonist ally with the past and the future while existing and saving the world in the present.

It’s a high-concept enterprise and Nolan sets the stage beautifully in the opening gambit itself. While a classical orchestra is on, a team of assassins lay siege to the auditorium and its audience. Then comes in the cavalry… the play is on whether this was staged, a test or real. But we don’t really care because it’s an impressive set-piece opener that gets the ball rolling for what is to be an outrageous world saving (from Armageddon caused by the future) endeavor that involves a CIA operative who calls himself ‘The Protagonist’ (John David Washington), a Russian Oligarch Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh) who is the antagonist here, his abused wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) whose main motivation is to be reunited with her young son, a jack-of-all-skills Neil(Robert Pattinson) and an arms dealer from Mumbai Priya Singh (Dimple Kapadia). The funny thing here is that everyone appears to know what’s going to happen, there’s a sense that fate overrides free will and counter programming and yet there’s this protagonist who is striving to avert something that is already destined to happen. It’s confusing and confounding to say the least… yet it’s all so intricately laid out in an elongated exposition that you are totally spellbound by the visual entreaty of it.

There’s no scene chewing performance here. The acting ranges from enigmatic, playful to one-dimensional serious and villainous. There’s a method in this kind of streamlining. The script and direction don’t ask for anything more as any overplaying would have rendered the entire set-up thankless. The narrative depth comes entirely from Nolan’s consummate sleek and slick direction, Jennifer Lame’s tricky editing, thought-revoking momentum, heart-thumping background score, beautifully envisioned set-piece action sequences, pulse-pounding sound design and dazzlingly entreating widescreen cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema.

Nolan’s films are complex enough to demand a second viewing and this film, designed to be watched on big screen cinemas is more so. Unfortunately it has released at a time when most pockets are running on empty amidst an ensuing pandemic that has life and death in its thrall. So it remains to be seen whether the cinema going public will make a second run to the theatres in their effort to decode Tenet’s complex algorithm.

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