Christopher Nolan explains ‘Tenet’
No stranger to his films creating intense debate and discussion, Christopher Nolan prefers not to spell things out explicitly for the audience, allowing them to draw their own interpretations and conclusions.
It’s been a running theme of his career. While he has offered insight into how the fractured timeline of Memento operated relative to its narrative progression, he’s always stopped just short of a blow-by-blow analysis that picks apart every interwoven thread.
Much the same can be said of Tenet, Nolan’s palindromic blockbuster that meets itself in the middle before doubling back and ending at the beginning, which isn’t quite as confusing as it sounds. The crux of the entire story hinges on the idea of inversion, but outlining that in words is a lot easier said than done.
In fact, Nolan admits that it’s a lot easier to simply watch the movie and grasp it from there. “That’s the fun thing about Tenet for me, is that it’s harder to talk about than just watch it and understand it,” he said. Nonetheless, he gave additional insight into the machinations behind the highest of high concepts.
“Tenet’s not a film about time travel in the conventional sense. It is about the direction of time. And that’s defined by a thing called entropy,” Nolan elaborated. “All laws of physics are symmetrical. They’re identical, whichever direction time is running in, other than entropy. And there’s debate in the field of physics as to whether that defines the direction of time or whether it just shows the direction of time, whether it’s a cause of it or whether it’s a product.”
According to Nolan, “Tenet takes on this idea of entropy as the cause”. By extension, “Rather than just moving backwards and forwards in time, machines have been developed that can change the direction of time for an object or person.” By putting that into practice cinematically, the director had two separate streams of time – one each moving backwards and forwards – within the space of the same scene.
“You don’t have to view cause and effect as defined by one coming before the other,” he continued. “There’s nothing in the laws of physics that says you couldn’t look at time in a different direction.” Zeroing in on the scene where John David Washington’s unnamed protagonist has an inverted bullet leap into his hand, it’s an act of will.
“You made it happen, whether or not you drop the bullet, whether or not it flies up to your hand, it has to be your hand, it has to be your will that’s making it happen,” he added. Like Nolan said, it’s a tricky thing to accurately explain, but it does at least make things a little clearer for those who remain stumped by Tenet.
