The first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is here, and it’s exactly as enigmatic and physics-defying as you’d expect.
Things kick off when John David Washington’s mysterious agent/mercenary protagonist (whose job apparently involves running up tall buildings) is forced to swallow a cyanide pill on the train tracks. He awakens in a hospital bed, whereupon he’s told, “Welcome to the afterlife.” From there, things chill out as he gets pulled into what seems like your standard WWIII-preventing mission. (Something worse than nuclear holocaust, a widespread conspiracy, double agents, etc. etc.) But as the trailer nears the end, it becomes clear that something way weirder is going on. We see a car un-crash in real-time, and well, just see for yourself.
Tenet stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kenneth Branagh, Elizabeth Debicki, Michael Caine, Himesh Patel, Clémence Poésy, Andrew Howard, and more. It arrives in theaters July 17, 2020.
Tenet: a palindrome that can be read both backwards and forwards.
At the 1:10 mark, the ship is also going backwards (look at the waves around its bow). Intentional or a mistake (I’m guessing intentional). Looking forward to hearing more about this.
@2 – Well, seeing how the rest of the trailer deals with stuff going in reverse, I’d say it was intentional :)
Hahaa, some of it was shot in our capital, and I even recognized a place or two! Can’t usually say that about Hollywood blockbusters!
Not only is the title a palindrome, but the logo is rotationally symmetrical. And the poster literally shows the protagonist coming and going (and he seems to be wearing a breathing mask in the latter half).
I saw someone point out that “TENET” is also the middle line of the ancient “Sator Square” 2-dimensional palindrome:
ROTAS
OPERA
TENET
AREPO
SATOR
Besides the uncrashing car and the backward boat wakes, the final shot after he says “Hasn’t happened yet” seems to show the soldier “falling up” toward him. Evidently these characters are moving backward through time relative to the world around them, or are able to temporarily rewind themselves in time (since we see the car crashing and then uncrashing).
Plus, Michael Caine is there. In a Christopher Nolan film. What a shocker.
@5 – Christopher Nolan probably figures you can never go wrong by casting Michael Caine. And he’s right.
Certainly looks more interesting than his last film. Nolan is a 50/50 director every other film is quality.
John David Washington is fantastic. I’m not a huge Nolan fan, but I’ll see this one.