#NowWatching “TENET.”

Movie of the year so far, and it’s not even close.

I probably won’t be doing too long a Twitter thread on “TENET” yet, because not everybody has had a chance to see it.

And they should. It’s great.

Also, I love that I just turned “TENET” on and my neighbours are listening. The bass is outstanding.

For all the “Nolan is a jerk who only believes in cinema” nonsense, he has talked about how carefully he tailors his movies for home media.

(He was a VHS kid.)

“We love in a twilight world.”

“TENET” knows exactly what it’s doing, casting Robert Pattinson as a scarf-wearing sharp suited “soft boy.”

He has a teenage daughter. Just like casting Harry Styles in “Dunkirk”, Nolan is very pointedly casting male leads who are less “macho.”

Sure, Christian Bale put on muscle and weight to play Batman, but it’s worth reflecting Bale played the Timothée Chalamet character in Gillian Armstrong’s “Little Women.”

Otherwise, Nolan’s protagonists tend to be “pretty boys” rather than superheroes; DiCaprio, McConaughey, etc

For all the idea of Nolan as a traditionally macho director, it’s worth noting that Nolan’s protagonists tend to be the sort of figures we associate with male heroes in stories aimed at women.

They’re emotionally volatile, often falling apart, rarely physically aggressive.

It’s notable that so many of Nolan’s male characters are pairable; the Protagonist & Neil in “TENET”, Arthur & Eames in “Inception.”

It’s similar to the presentation of characters in “Supernatural” or “Sherlock”, but without the insecurity of adding love interests to hide it.

Even in “TENET”, without getting spoilery, even the Protagonist - played by “Baller” actor John David Washington - tends to prefer Diet Coke and is treated as platonically protective rather than sexually predatory towards Kat.

(Which is notable given he’s James Bond.)

“That’s not the mission.”
“It’s my mission now.”

That said, it’s interesting that the Protagonist is presented as probably Nolan’s most unambiguously heroic lead character.

He’s presented consistently as a good guy with a strong moral compass, which is interesting.

Again, Nolan is playing with tropes and expectations.

The Protagonist is arguably more wholesome and fundamentally decent than any iteration of James Bond, for example.

It’s surprisingly earnest and endearing. It helps that Washington is charming, and the character is funny.

Even Cooper in “Interstellar”, who is played by all-American icon Matthew McConaughey, is portrayed as selfish and short-sighted - willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to protect his children.

In contrast, the Protagonist is an unambiguously good and heroic guy.

“But in this world where someone is pretending to be a billionaire, Brooks Brothers is not going to cut it.”

One of the subtle recurring motifs in “TENET” is the idea of control, and notably (without getting spoilery) who gets to control the past and the future.

Again, keeping it deliberately vague, Sator is an old privileged white guy trying to maintain control of the past and future, who can’t imagine the world without him.

It’s most obvious in how Sator basically keeps his wife imprisoned and locked in the family unit.

The Protagonist is repeatedly portrayed as a character navigating a somewhat alien world - handled with more grace than, say, “Hillbilly Elegy”, which is explicitly about this.

Repeatedly, “TENET” suggests that the future is best entrusted to people other than old white guys.

“I ordered my hot sauce half an hour ago.”

As somebody who co-hosts a podcast where “food waste” is a recurring motif, I have always loved the kitchen fight scene, where the Protagonist turns everything into a weapon.

It’s a great, visceral, straightforward fight sequence.

“At least you give [staff] ten seconds.”
“Our clients use us because we have no priorities above their property.”
“... Blimey.”

Again, for all that Nolan’s films are about well-manicured and well-dressed men, there’s a simmering contempt for the absurdities of modern capitalism.

It’s a small detail in “TENET”, but the freeport is just one example in “TENET” of how rich dudes don’t really care about anything they don’t own - and how everything else is expendable.

Incidentally, this idea comes back later when we get to the character of Sator.

I suspect this is where I check out from live tweeting, because anything further probably gives away stuff best experienced directly when people have had a chance to watch it.

But it’s great, is the point.

“Who is the American?”

Find somebody who loves you as much as Kenneth Branagh loves doing funny, committed accents.

And this is something that probably says more about me than it does about the films, but I’ve always found Nolan’s films to have a very arch and wry sense of humour and self-awareness that I love.

It’s not the ironic jokey tone of modern blockbusters, but it’s definitely there.

Again, it’s a very British sensibility - you see it a lot in the Connery Bond films.

It takes the film seriously, trusts humour to flow organically from character. Sator is entirely serious and earnest in his villainy, and the Protagonist uses humour to deflect.

I don’t ever want to reach the point were I don’t find a character responding to an extremely graphic monologue about absurdly excessive torture with a flippant, “Complex.”

It reminds me a lot of Craig dealing with LeChiffre in “Casino Royale.”

“I staked my claim in the New Russia.”

Again, keeping it intentionally vague here, but it’s notable that Nolan frames the breakdown of time in terms the Cold War.

Both starting at the end of the Cold War and arguably replacing it as a Cold War.

Again, we’re admittedly reaching the centre of “stuff that is very much Darren’s jam”, but the end of the Cold War was argued to be “the End of History.”

So it’s natural that it serves as ground zero for this perversion of cause and effect, breakdown of order.

Plus, you know, the idea of a Russian survivor of the Cold War waging an ideological war that hinges on halting the flow of natural progression of time in the West (while feeding British intelligence garbage).

It’s not especially subtle, but it’s very - I’m not sorry - timely.

Plus, I am not ashamed to admit that I am, underneath it all, a simple man.

I also like it when stuff blows up real good.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with blockbuster spectacle, and if you can show me something that I have never seen before, that goes a long way.

(And if you have to point to an episode of “Red Dwarf” to find a comparison, it’s safe to say it’s new to blockbuster cinema.)

“Tem-por-al Pincer Movement.”

I’m not a huge Aaron Taylor Johnson fan, but few actors can make as much of a meal out of a three-word phrase.

(It does contribute a little bit to the sense that Johnson is playing the Tom Hardy role, complete with delightful phonetic choices.)

“You did get my pulse above 130. No one’s done that before. Not even my wife.”

*cue sexy, suggestive bass guitar solo*

“Let’s start with the simple stuff.”

It’s too early to talk about this openly on Twitter - again, for spoiler reasons - but Nolan does some interesting and playful stuff with exposition in “TENET.”

He repeatedly cuts away from dialogue-driven exposition.

“TENET” does a lot of showing-not-telling, what might be termed “visual exposition.” He repeatedly demonstrates the film’s internal logic visually rather than through dialogue.

And the film occasionally seems downright cheeky towards audience members who want it articulated.

Trying to explain time travel logic can work in prose, and even in television, and in indie films like “Primer.”

But it often slows a film down and turns it into awkward academic exposition.

Rian Johnson makes this point in “Looper”, for example.

So Nolan counts on two things.

Most obviously that - like a lot of storytelling - it matters more that the logic works on an intuitive level rather than an intellectual level.

But also, if he shows audiences how it works, they’ll generally follow along as he builds on it.

“You have started looking at the world in a new way.”

My podcast buddy Andrew made the point, with the film’s emphasis on looking at the universe in a way that transcends cause and effect or action and reaction, “TENET” arguably has a spiritual subtext.

Which is interesting.

There’s definitely a religious subtext to Nolan’s earlier films like “Memento”, “Batman Begins” and “The Prestige.”

In that they’re about making something bigger than the protagonist’s perception of the world.

And in this sense, “TENET” is notable for what it does my answer about the nature of the world inhabited by the protagonist.

It leaves space (deliberately) on the sort of existential questions we associate with stories like this. In that characters explicitly ask the questions.

However, the film refuses to provide objectively verifiable answers to the existential questions that the Protagonist asks.

Which is important, because it’s important that there are things that are fundamentally unknowable.

This is one of those “am I reading too much?” moments, but items notable that the evidence of “inversion” initially presented to the Protagonist looks like gears and cogs. Items designed.

Maybe there is a watchmaker. Maybe, like “Interstellar”, we make the watch ourselves.

“You don’t believe in god. Or a future. Or anything outside your own experience.”
“The rest is belief - and I don’t have it.”

Again, that classic Nolanian theme of belief in something greater than the material world.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
(Shakes head.)
“... But it sounds terribly important.”

Nolan having a bit of good-natured self-aware fun at his own tendency towards pomposity.

“What’s happened happened, which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the word. It’s not an excuse to do nothing.”

There’s a surprisingly wholesome philosophy nestled at the heart of “TENET.”

The idea that people are obligated to do good, to make the world better.

Maybe there is fate and predestination.

Maybe there are just Russian oligarchs distorting democracy and freeports that would suffocate their own staff to protect billionaires’ property.

But that doesn’t absolve a person from the responsibility to act for the greater good.

It’s a very humanist philosophy, very similar to that of “Interstellar” - if there’s no god that will save us as the world dies, it’s up to us to save ourselves.

Of course, “TENET” is much more cynical than “Interstellar.” https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/in-interstellar-the-future-could-save-us-in-tenet-it-condemns-us/

That makes sense.

“Interstellar” was a blockbuster of the late Obama era. There was still some small hope, even as things worsened.

In contrast, “TENET” is a blockbuster of the Trump era. The world may be screwed. It may be out of our hands. But we still have a responsibility.

And so, “TENET.”

Eh...