Secret agent within an elite unit, the Protagonist - yes, that's what he is called in the film, we will never know his name - is in charge, after a mission which he should have not to escape, from a mysterious case to say the least: to find who can put on the market a weapon from the future. Bullets for example, which are not satisfied with having traveled in time: they are "inverted", they appear in the weapon after the target has been aimed!
Already having trouble keeping up? It's normal. Alongside “Tenet”, “Inception”, another great success with the tortuous screenplay of director Christopher Nolan, finally appears as a fable for primary schoolchildren… This film with a colossal budget of 200 million dollars, which will be released this Wednesday in France and in other European countries well before the United States, however, constitutes a piece of bravery as one sees only one per year, at best. And, given the lack of competition in terms of Hollywood blockbusters and big French comedies, it is on track to tear everything up at the tricolor box office. The latter, sluggish since the health crisis with attendance down by two-thirds, is in great need.
Crazy action scenes . The first 20 minutes, a military intervention in an opera, already set the bar very high. But these won't be the only ones to panic your heart rate. “Tenet” also includes literally never-before-seen combat scenes, a completely new car chase, and a Dantesque warrior finale whose design is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's “Full Metal Jacket”. Just that.
A tribute to spy films. “Tenet” is not just a new creation from the brilliant Christopher Nolan. The latter, who has just celebrated his 50th birthday, admits to having wanted to pay tribute to the spy films that amazed him during his childhood. “The first one I saw was The Spy Who Loved Me , (1977) a James Bond with Roger Moore. I must have been 7 years old. I had the impression that I could jump into the screen to go to the four corners of the world, it is this feeling that I wanted to find again, ”he explained to us last week. We can also think during certain scenes that Nolan has fun shooting his own "Mission: Impossible", or even "Jason Bourne" ...
Nolan master of time. As we know, the director is obsessed with time. He constantly plays with it: backwards in “Memento”, with three different temporal plots in “Dunkirk”, modifying its flow in “Inception”.
But "Tenet" - an English term which means "precept", but above all a palindrome, a word that can be read in both directions, like the time that Nolan dreams of mastering, in the direction of the future as well as the past - goes even further. . “The idea of attacking the spy film and using it as a vehicle to take the audience on a journey with a strange time dimension goes back to 6 or 7 years, confides the director. These years of reflection have been used to bring into the same framework, espionage, my ideas on time, and a spectacle which allows the spectator to follow the Protagonist around the world ”.
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A complexity that will make people talk . The opening of the film, which sees the Protagonist playing the cuckoos during an anti-terrorist operation, is already not immediately comprehensible. But the mission entrusted to him just after, with at the beginning a single code word, "Tenet", turns out to be even more hazy. Like the hero, the spectator benefits from clues dropped in droplets and, once the problem has been established, is asked to open his eyes, ears and brain wide.
The risk remains however of being a little lost on the way, but it is ultimately not so serious. The spectacle on the screen is such that we apply to the letter the advice given at the beginning of the film by a scientist to the Protagonist: “Don't try to understand! Just feel ”. And possibly return to see the film a second time to enjoy it even better ...
Attendance figures kept secret until Monday
"Tenet" attendance figures will not be released until Monday. This exceptional decision was confirmed by the Warner Bros studio on Tuesday evening. Usually, the first figures are revealed on Wednesday, for the first day of operation, including any previews. Others follow the weekend, before a weekly review.
This time, the Warner will not give anything until Monday, August 31 in the day. In an exceptional situation, an exceptional decision, we are assured of the studio. “The film comes out under special, unprecedented conditions, we justify. We are on a farm that will be built over time. The decision was therefore taken not to communicate figures before the end of the weekend. The Warner explains in particular that it wishes to avoid any hasty comparison with the attendance figures recorded last year at the same period, when the Covid-19 had not yet started to prevail.
This secrecy of figures will not be unique to France. The 70 or so countries which will broadcast "Tenet" between Wednesday and Friday will be subject to the same blackout. In France, the feature film, which has benefited from more than 550 preview screenings between Monday and Tuesday, is showing up in no less than 675 cinemas throughout the country, which means much more screens. The owners of rooms are counting on him to save a catastrophic summer, when attendance has fallen by two-thirds.
EDITOR'S RATING: 4.5 / 5
"Tenet" , spy film by Christopher Nolan, with John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Brannagh ... 2:30.