Page 14 - aruba-today-Sept 2 2020

A14 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 2 september 2020
Review: In 'Tenet,' a time-bending thriller for bended times

By JAKE COYLE (Elizabeth Debicki, the film's
AP Film Writer most suave and affecting
I went in fresh to "Tenet." I performer), an art dealer
didn't have any real sense who has come to detest
of the plot, yes, but it's more her husband.
that it had been some five As a film, "Tenet" rumbles
months since I was last in like a jumbo jet. Its sheer
a movie theater. That's a tonnage is what most
long hiatus — a dark ages strikes you. There are trucks
for sitting in the dark — for and ships, giant turbines
someone, anyone, used to and helicopters, concrete
going to the movies more masses and 747s. It's a liter-
days than not. The last film ally heavy movie. The set-
I had seen in a cinema, tings, which span from the
back in March, was the Vin Amalfi Coast to the "closed
Diesel vehicle "Bloodshot," cities" of Russia, give "Tenet"
so you can imagine my a technological backdrop
eagerness for a new after- of ecological destruction. If
taste. anything, I wish Nolan had
It's complicated, in a way, taken his future vs. past
to parse the experience. concept further, instead
There's the feeling of be- of situating it so firmly in
ing back in a movie the- the more familiar (in mov-
ater, and then there's the ies) world of black-market
sensations particular to weapons dealers.
"Tenet." For Christopher No- "Tenet" lacks the elegant
lan, whose films build their mastery of "Dunkirk" or the
conceptual architecture cosmic soulfulness of "Inter-
around the metaphysics of This image released by Warner Bros. Entertainment shows John David Washington in a scene from stellar," but it has a darkly
movies themselves, it's kind "Tenet." grand geometry. As instru-
of one and the same. His Associated Press ments in an abstraction,
movies are designed, from now. side, a squadron of co- by land, sea and air, "Te- most of Nolan's protago-
a molecular level, to unlock For better and worse, "Te- vert American agents are net" is spliced between nists verge on the hollow.
innate cinematic powers net" is just a movie. It won't stirred. They pick a local past, present and future. Washington glides through
and glorify the almighty beat the virus and it won't police patch for their shoul- A heady genre movie that the film with charisma and
Big Screen — a lonely god single-handedly save mov- ders, and one among them puts James Bond-like tropes preternatural smoothness
these last few months. ie theaters. It won't even re- (John David Washington, through a collider, it's very but his character's inner life
As the first major film re- ally blow your mind. But for known only as "the Protag- much a companion piece goes unexplored. Leonar-
leased in theaters since the much of its 150-minute run- onist" in the credits) maneu- to "Inception" (a heist mov- do DiCaprio's Cobb in "In-
pandemic began, "Tenet" ning time, Nolan's globe- vers to rescue a man who ie with a sci-fi spin) and just ception" wasn't so different,
has swelled in the minds trotting sci-fi riff on the spy sits in a closed balcony. He as laden with continual ex- but the mission plunged di-
of anxious moviegoers, thriller will provide a daz- greets him with the coded planation. rectly into his subconscious.
adopting the role of sav- zling escape, one dense phrase "We live in a twilight The central conceit here Nolan, a visionary filmmak-
ior. Nolan vs. COVID-19 is with singular imagery and world." is that a rare mineral can er, can sometimes be too
as much part of the drama intellectual puzzles. And, As he's trying to stop bombs reverse the entropy of ob- busy conjuring visions to
of "Tenet" as anything on perhaps most vitally, it will from going off in the the- jects. That means time build a character.
screen, and just as con- give a cool, brutalist re- ater, an odd thing hap- travel, inverted weapons, Time is Nolan's real protag-
voluted and disorienting. fresher of the movies' ca- pens. Tussling with one of car chases that speed onist, anyway. Its loss was
Seeing "Tenet" for this critic pacity for awe, for imagi- the terrorists, a bullet seems both ways and the biggest the agony of "Interstellar."
meant crossing numerous nation, and, yes, for tire- to fly backward into the blockbuster to ever look a A ticking clock, on three
state lines and watching it some grandiosity. For the gun. After being taken little like the backward-run- different temporal tracks,
at a nearly empty movie palindromic "Tenet," it cuts hostage and tortured, he ning Pharcyde music vid- measured "Dunkirk." In "Te-
theater — a luxury of so- both ways. blacks out. When he wakes eo "Drop," by Spike Jonze. net," it moves in circles:
cial distancing that won't Naturally, "Tenet" opens on up much later, he's told that These weapons are the backward and forward like
be possible for most, even a crowded auditorium. At he's been released from "detritus of a coming war," waves in the ocean. It's a
in reduced capacity the- an opera house in Kyiv, just the CIA and been enlisted we're told; the future is at- distinctive characteristic
aters. At its best, moviego- as the conductor is raising in a shadowy organization tacking the past. of the movies, and it's one
ing has always been thrill- his baton, a barrage of bul- known as Tenet. The mis- The Protagonist's journey you can feel Nolan investi-
ing, even dangerous. That lets rings out and masked sion goes beyond borders, brings him in touch with a gating and experimenting
may be doubly so right men take the stage. Out- he's told. A Cold War — "ice British fixer named Neil (a with. It's easy to imagine
cold" — is brewing. He's to delightfully knowing and "Tenet" was born in an edit-
try to prevent World War III especially dashing Robert ing suite, while a shot was
and an apocalypse worse Pattinson; you want him rewound and epiphany
than nuclear holocaust. always to say more than struck.
The details of this secret he does), a Mumbai arms Time has grown strangely
war — who's on what side, dealer (Dimple Kapadia) elastic during the pandem-
what's at stake — take a and ultimately a Ukrainian ic (as have movie release
while to unspool. But just oligarch named Andrei schedules). Today, yester-
as Nolan's last film, the Sator (Kenneth Branagh). day and tomorrow blur to-
gorgeously synchronized To reach the insulated Sa- gether. So it's some comfort
WWII survival tale "Dunkirk," tor, the Protagonist finds an that even still, Nolan's clock
was arranged elementally entry through his wife, Kat keeps ticking.q