In Tenet we follow our protagonist who is recruited by a secretive organisation of the
same name and their mission is to prevent the destruction of the world.
Our future descendants have discovered the secret of inversion, a process by which they
can reverse the entropy of things, allowing them to travel backwards through time.
The future wants to fully reverse the flow of time as the effects of climate change have
made their world unbearable, but in doing so, they will destroy the world of the present.
Helping the future is a Russian Oligarch named Sator.
He has been tasked with bringing together parts of an algorithm which will allow the
entropy of the entire world to be reversed.
He is looking for the last remaining part of the algorithm.
Turnstiles - what are they and how do they work?
Turnstiles are machines which are able to invert objects and people.
The red side of the turnstile is for people who are moving forward in time and the blue
side of the turnstile is for people who are inverted and will experience events that have
already occurred in reverse order.
In this example the forward moving protagonist in red is making his way into the red side
of the turnstile to become inverted.
When he looks through the clear barrier between the red side of the turnstile and the blue
side, he sees his inverted self walking backwards to the blue side of the turnstile because
the forward moving protagonist, is going to shortly invert and become the inverted version
of himself, going through past events and that’s why they both exist in that same
moment.
The only way for an inverted person to rejoin the forward moving world is to use a turnstile
again and revert.
The inverted protagonist will have to enter the blue side of another turnstile, or even
the same turnstile he just used, but to keep things simple, let’s give him another turnstile.
As he is entering the blue side of the turnstile, he will see a forward moving version of himself
make his way to the red side of the turnstile.
This forward moving protagonist is not the same as the previous forward moving protagonist
who has his own separate journey in the same timeline.
This new forward moving protagonist is protagonist 2.
A helpful way to be able to distinguish people moving in the forward timeline and those that
are inverted, is that the latter have to carry their own air and wear masks because inverted
people’s lungs are not able to breathe in the air in the forward moving world.
Events in chronological order
Tenet is constructed like a puzzle with pieces of information scattered throughout the story
which comes together at the end.
The film opens at an opera house in Kiev where undercover CIA agents, Ukrainian forces and
Sator’s men converge to try and acquire the last piece of the algorithm that has surfaced
there.
The protagonist is one of the undercover CIA agents and he finds himself held at gunpoint
by someone working for the other side.
He spots a hole in a wall which seems to be fixing itself and suddenly a bullet goes backwards
through his adversary.
The protagonist’s rescuer is a man, dressed in combat gear, who runs away, wearing a backpack
with a gold disk and orange string dangling from it.
The protagonist ends up captured anyway and is tortured for information but opts to take
what he believes is a cyanide pill, choosing death over betraying his teammates and mission.
This all turns out to be an elaborate test to see whether the protagonist has what it
takes to be part of the Tenet organisation.
He is given limited information and is told that knowledge is divided among the members.
The reasoning is that if people know too much of the events that are about to unfold, and
act differently then things cannot happen as they need to in order to be able to save
the world.
The protagonist meets with a scientist that shows him how inverted ammunition works.
Bullets travel backward into the protagonist’s gun rather than the other way round.
He deduces that the ammunition came from an arms dealer in India and he makes his way
to Mumbai.
The protagonist calls for assistance and help comes in the form of Neil who seems to have
done his homework on the protagonist, even knowing what he likes to drink.
When the protagonist meets Priya, the arms dealer and also a member of Tenet, she insists
she had nothing to do with inverting the ammunition and says it’s all Sator.
She urges the protagonist to get close to Sator and find out more.
To that end Priya sets him up with a British intelligence contact that may be able to help
him.
The protagonist meets with Sir Michael Crosby who gives him some background on Sator.
He also tells the protagonist the best way to make contact with Sator is to go via his
estranged wife, Katherine Barton.
She is an art expert and she mistakenly authenticated a fake Goya that Sator purchased.
Sator knows of the mistake and uses the painting against Kat, threatening her with the police
and incarceration if she attempts to leave him.
He also controls and limits Kat’s access to their son.
The protagonist tells Kat he will steal the painting for her in exchange for help getting
close to Sator and Kat informs him that the painting is in a freeport in Oslo.
Neil and the protagonist come up with a plan to steal the painting by driving a plane through
the back wall of the freeport which will revert the internal locks to factory settings.
The protagonist and Neil, who is a talented locksmith, will proceed to pick the locks
and enter the inner chambers of the freeport where they are hoping the painting is stashed.
Everything goes according to plan until the protagonist and Neil encounter a turnstile.
The protagonist is on the blue side of the turnstile and Neil is on the red side.
Suddenly two masked men jump out of the turnstile.
One is inverted and fights with the protagonist and one is forward-moving, after whom Neil
chases.
We will revisit this scene later but for now let’s keep moving through events in chronological
order.
After the freeport incident the protagonist once again meets with Priya who reveals how
turnstiles work.
Priya tells the protagonist that the missing piece of the algorithm is now in the hands
of Ukrainian Security services and will be being transported through Tallin.
Kat, under the impression the protagonist was able to steal the fake Goya, makes the
introduction between the protagonist and Sator.
After some convincing, Sator agrees to let the protagonist try and steal the missing
piece of the algorithm for him and this sets the scene for a car chase in Tallinn.
This scene is the first time we see a section of time in both directions.
After attacking Kat at the freeport, normal Sator hides away.
The protagonist manages to lift the missing algorithm piece and while he and Neil are
driving down the highway they are joined by two other cars, an SUV and a Saab, both seeming
to travel backwards.
The SUV contains an inverted Sator threatening Kat and the Saab is being driven by an inverted
protagonist.
The protagonist throws the missing algorithm piece into the Saab and throws an empty orange
case to inverted Sator, who along with his henchman exits the SUV, leaving Kat alone
in a runaway car.
The protagonist manages to stop the SUV from crashing but he and Kat are kidnapped by Sator’s
henchmen and taken to the freeport which contains a turnstile.
The protagonist is taken to the red side of the freeport and Kat is on the blue side with
an inverted Sator.
Inverted Sator interrogates the protagonist and shoots Kat with an inverted bullet.
Normal Sator emerges but when the cavalry - a backup team that Neil has radioed for
help - arrives he quickly jumps into the turnstile, inverts and starts making his way back through
the events that have passed.
After realising that Kat’s only chance of survival is to invert her, the protagonist,
Neil, Kat and the cavalry invert themselves.
Let’s now go through the events in reverse order.
The inverted Sator emerges from the turnstile, unshoots Kat and interrogates the protagonist.
He then retraces his steps to make his way back to the car chase.
The inverted protagonist also emerges from the freeport and gets in a parked Saab which
he has seen himself driving during the car chase.
The inverted protagonist locates the orange case he threw to inverted Sator and plants
a listening device into it as he knows that inverted Sator will at some point have that
case with him.
When inverted Sator does indeed pick the orange case back up, the inverted protagonist hears
him tell his henchmen to take the pieces of the algorithm they already have back to the
hypocentre.
Based on this information and Michael Crosby’s earlier revelation that there was an explosion
that took place at Stalsk-12, Sator’s hometown, on the same day of the Kiev siege, the protagonist
will correctly guess where Sator will be attempting to hide the completed algorithm.
When all three cars are back on the highway the inverted Sator spots the protagonist throw
the missing algorithm piece into the Saab.
It is at this point in time that inverted Sator discovers where the missing piece of
the algorithm is.
He will go on to inform his men where the piece will end up and when, so they are able
to retrieve it from the Saab.
After Sator spots the protagonist making the handover, the SUV slams into the Saab which
flips it over.
Inverted Sator will return to light the Saab on fire which results in heat being drawn
away from the inverted protagonist and him getting hypothermia.
Inverted Sator and his inverted henchman then drop Kat off at the freeport.
This happens off screen.
From inverted Sator’s perspective this is the end of his journey with Kat during this
sequence of events, but for Kat, who so far is experiencing events in the forward timeline,
this is her being picked up by the inverted Sator and she still has the experience of
the car chase and her being shot ahead of her.
The inverted protagonist is rescued and rejoins inverted Kat and inverted Neil.
The intention is that once inverted Kat has had some time to recover from her wound they
will revert and rejoin the forward moving world.
They journey to the Oslo freeport because they know there is a turnstile there, and
they will also be able to access it by arriving at the time when they had previously breached
the freeport defences.
The inverted protagonist enters the scene and fights with the protagonist as he makes
his way towards the turnstile.
After the inverted protagonist enters the turnstile he emerges as protagonist 2 who
starts to experience things in the forward timeline again.
After he is unmasked by Neil he runs out of the freeport and signals for the waiting inverted
Neil and inverted Kat to revert.
Inverted Neil and inverted Kat revert and become Neil 2 and Kat 2.
They are now further back in time than protagonist 2 and must wait for him to emerge before they
can re-group.
Once back together they figure out that after the Tallin car chase, inverted Sator must
have gone back to Vietnam, where he enjoyed a recent holiday with Kat and their son.
Sator has inoperable pancreatic cancer and intends to kill himself.
He plans to send the future the details of the location of the algorithm upon his death.
Communication with the future occurs as events are logged.
As emails, news reports, bank transactions, texts etc. are recorded, the future is able
to know what has happened in the past.
Neil reveals that forward moving Sator was present at the Kiev siege so inverted Sator
had the opportunity to go back to his yacht in Vietnam without danger of there being two
of him present at the same location at the same time.
Therefore on the day of the Kiev siege, inverted Sator was holidaying in Vietnam while his
men were attempting to bury the algorithm in Stalsk 12.
Protagonist 2, Neil 2 and Kat 2 need to stop Sator and they use turnstiles once again to
invert and go back in time.
Inverted Protagonist 2 and inverted Neil 2, along with an inverted cavalry travel to Stalsk
12 in order to try and extract the algorithm.
Inverted Kat 2 travels to Vietnam in order to delay Sator from ending his life and letting
the future know where the algorithm is before the team are able to successfully extract
it.
Sator’s men plan to place the algorithm at the bottom of the hypocentre and a bomb
will be detonated which will bury it.
Before the Stalsk 12 battle, the cavalry are divided into two teams, the red team who experience
the flow of time in the forward direction and the blue team who are inverted.
A red team splinter unit, consisting of Protagonist 3, who was inverted protagonist 2 and has
now reverted, and Ives head to the hypocentre to lift the algorithm.
For simplicity we won’t number Ives.
As Protagonist 3 and Ives run into the hypocentre they fail to notice a car honking to try and
stop them.
They set off a tripwire and the hypocentre entrance is sealed up, trapping them inside
but as there’s nothing else for it the pair barrel on towards the bottom of the hypocentre.
They find a locked metal door that stops them from going any further as well as a dead body
wearing a blue armband on the other side of the locked door.
Volkov appears with the algorithm and Sator calls Protagonist 3 from his yacht and taunts
him as the end of the world nears.
Sator ends the call by instructing Volkov to shoot Protagonist 3 and as Volkov does
the dead soldier comes alive, stands up and takes the bullet.
The soldier is inverted and after the bullet hits him, it immediately reverses backwards
and re-enters Volkov’s gun.
The soldier proceeds to open the door for protagonist 3 and Ives, who wrestle the algorithm
away from Volkov.
Finally the mysterious soldier runs away, backwards.
Protagonist 3 and Ives still don’t have a way out of the hypocentre until two ropes
land at their feet.
Without asking questions they grab them and are lifted out to safety.
They discover that it’s Neil or rather Neil 3 who has rescued them.
Inverted Neil 2 was originally part of the inverted blue team, and he spotted Volkov
booby trap the entrance of the hypocentre.
Knowing this means Protagonist 3 and Ives will get trapped in the hypocentre and in
an effort to save them inverted Neil 2 reverts and becomes Neil 3.
He finds a car and races over to Protagonist 3 and Ives just as they are entering the hypocentre
and honks at them to try and get them to stop.
This is the car horn we heard earlier.
Neil 3 finds another way to rescue Protagonist 3 and Ives, by dropping down ropes to the
bottom of the hypocenter.
When protagonist 3, Neil 3 and Ives are all back together they have a brief conversation
and agree to hide the algorithm.
But Neil 3 realises that his mission isn’t finished, he needs to go back into the battlefield
once again because it was he who was the dead soldier who helped protagonist 3 and Ives
in the hypocentre.
No other locksmith they know is as talented as Neil.
Neil 3 will invert again, run into the hypocentre, open the locked gate and take Volkov’s bullet
meant for protagonist 3 and that is when his story will end.
Protagonist 3 is devastated to learn this and Neil 3 comforts him by letting him know
that they will meet again.
Who is Neil?
During their final conversation Protagonist 3 notices a gold disc and red chain dangling
from Neil 3’s backpack revealing that it was Neil who saved him at the Kiev opera house.
Before Neil met the protagonist in Mumbai, he had already saved him in Kiev.
There are hints throughout the film that Neil is in fact Kat and Sator’s son, Maximilien.
In keeping with the theme of the film, if you take the last four letters of the name
Maximilien and invert them, it spells out Neil.
After the events of the film, the protagonist, who has formed a connection with Kat, may
have joined her and Max.
In that case his and Neil’s relationship will have started years in the future for
the protagonist and years in the past for Neil.
The Sator Square
The Sator square is an ancient word square containing a five word latin palindrome; which
means the words contained in the square read the same backwards as forwards.
The words in the square – Sator, Arepo, Tenet, Opera and Rotas – all make an appearance
in the film.
These palindromes allude to the nature of how time can be experienced in Tenet, that
is both backwards and forwards.
There are really three large set pieces in Tenet, the Oslo freeport scene, the Tallinn
highway car chase and the Stalks-12 battle where multiple people are moving forward and
backwards through time.
I will be publishing videos diving deeper into each of these scenes explaining exactly
what happens, so keep an eye out for those.
As always, thanks for watching, please make sure to like, comment and subscribe and I’ll
see you next time.