“TENET”, released on September 4, is the 11th feature film directed by Christopher Nolan. His work is known for his “brain-burning” techniques such as non-linear narrative, lens full of metaphors, and unpredictable time and space. Compared with the films “Memories” and “Inception” directed by him, the main story of “TENET” released today is relatively simple. It is about a special agent who wants to reverse the future and save the world while exploring the mystery of “TENET”. Constantly facing the huge crisis of “time and space reversal”. However, there are a lot of time and space reversal and interactive shots in the film, and even the red and blue rooms have completely opposite definitions of time. While creating the spectacle of visual effects, they also constantly test the audience’s understanding and speed. The Beijing News interviewed director Nolan, and listened to him explain how to control the elements of “science fiction plus spy”, and used graphic forms to deconstruct the plot and props to “cool down” this “brain-burning” work.
[Storyboard] Spoilers are involved, read carefully
Most people regard time as a linear and irreversible existence. In Nolan’s conception, time becomes a very easy to control curve that can be bent, twisted, paralleled or even reversed at will. He said: “The story of “TENET” is inspired by time and our experience of time. On this basis, I hope to combine elements of science fiction with classic spy film elements.” At the same time, Nolan also hopes to let the audience pass. These highly suspenseful action dramas follow the characters to get the joy of the adventure.
1. The first mission failed
A group of masked bandits broke into an opera house in Ukraine to take hostages. The goal was actually to snatch a suitcase containing mysterious substances. The protagonist and his companions pretend to be special police officers to snatch the suitcases, but the mission fails bizarrely, and the protagonist “fake death” to protect the secret.
2. Join “TENET”
After the protagonist was rescued from suspended animation, he was given a new and larger task. Through the experiment of a female scientist, she learned the concept of “reversing time” from the experiment in which the fired bullet returned to the barrel, and was told that the whole world might be because of Reverse time technology disappeared. The “dead” he no longer has an identity, he joined the “TENET” organization and became an anonymous person. His mission is to protect the world from being destroyed by time.
3. Investigate the villain
Anonymous and agent partner Neil began investigating Russian oligarch Sartre. He used his wife Kate’s art trading business to launder illegal funds, so the two began to approach Sartre through Kate. As they interacted, they found that Kate was also full of resentment for Sartre, who had been controlling her and his son Max. The Anonymous asks Kate to help them meet Sartre. In exchange, the Anonymous will free Kate and his son from Sartre’s control.
4. The plane hits the warehouse
In order to find the reverse-time equipment hidden by Sartre, the Anonymous and Neal designed a plane to crash and destroy the airport warehouse where the equipment may be hidden in order to cause a fire to open a safe passage and create an opportunity to enter the warehouse. A mystery was discovered in the process At the turnstile, they met at the same time two fully equipped mysterious time-reversers (actually Anonymous and Neil from Reversing Time and Space), and the plan failed.
5. Time reversal machine
Through investigation, Anonymous learned that the mysterious turnstile actually came from the future, and it was a machine capable of reversing time. Sartre wanted to use this machine to re-plan the time, and the opening hostage incident in the Ukrainian theater was actually planned by Sartre behind the scenes. The target is a suitcase containing plutonium elements, but the suitcase is currently in the hands of the Ukrainian military.
6. Fight against each other
The Anonymous forged the identity of the former diplomat and approached Sartre with the help of Kate. Kate made an accident and wanted to kill Sartre, but the Anonymous thought that there were too many valuable secrets in Sartre that could not be solved. These secrets involve the entire human world in the future. Of survival. He rescued Sartre, and then through wits, learned that plutonium is an important element of the time machine, but the Ukrainian military does not intend to exchange plutonium with Sartre. Sartre intends to use the Anonymous to grab the plutonium element from the transport convoy and give it to himself, and the Anonymous also decides to count.
7. Battle of the highway
On the highway, Anonymous and Neil and other TENET agents through subtle cooperation, as soon as the plutonium element was intercepted on the Ukrainian side, Sartre and his men appeared. They used the reversal space-time technology and Kate as hostages to snatch the spoils. The Anonymous and Neal also used the reversal time and space to shuttle between the past, the present and the future, not only to rescue the seriously injured Kate, but also to learn about Sartre’s true identity and his conspiracy to destroy the real world.
8. Discuss the “inverse” success
In order to prevent Sartre’s attempt to destroy humanity, the team headed by Anonymous, Neil and Kate came to Sartre’s base and used reverse time to complete the task, destroying the time bomb in Sartre’s hand, and finally stopping the human world. They perish in counter-time. At this time, Neal’s identity will also be revealed. The mission they perform at this time coincides with the beginning of the movie at the Ukrainian Opera House event, echoing the same concept at the beginning and end of time.
[Props Revealed]
There are four important mysterious props in the film, here is an analysis of their respective meanings.
●Five-character stele
An obelisk was found somewhere in the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii. It was carved with five five-letter Latin words. They formed palindromic verses. The surface meaning was “The God of Saturn (Sutter) has always controlled the time In fact, it means that the key to the film is “time reversal”.
SATOR: Sartre, the villain in the film, comes from the future, trying to use time bombs to destroy the past and future of mankind.
AREPO: A word derived from ancient Egypt, whose original meaning cannot be translated into modern words, which indicates mystery.
TENET: The title of the film, which means “TENET”, is also the name of the mysterious organization in the film.
OPERA: It means “opera”. The opening scene of the film is the explosion of the opera house.
ROTAS: The name of the construction company for the Freeport Warehouse under Sartre’s name is ROTAS, which happens to be the palindrome of Sartre SATOR.
●Oxygen mask
The state of movement of things will change to a state that is contrary to the normal state, thus causing a “time reversal”, people will go backwards, and the heat sensation will become cold. Therefore, since the characters in the reversed state cannot adapt to the oxygen in the normal state, they have to wear a mask at all times. This has also become an important sign to distinguish between the positive and the reverse state of the character.
●Time bomb
In the devastated future, a frenzied Frankenstein used parts derived from time-reversal technology to create a procedural bomb that could reverse the earth’s time and human civilization would be devastated. The plutonium element that Sartre snatched was the last part of the detonated program bomb.
●Time Gate
There are a total of four cross time revolving doors in the movie. They are divided into red and blue colors, which can be used for a short period of time. These huge revolving doors are magical mechanical devices for mechanized movement and articulation. This device is so large that it can even accommodate a car.
【Number Reading】
● “TENET” has only 280 VFX shots, which is less than most romantic comedies. For the film directed by director Nolan, this number is very low. “The Dark Knight” has 650 VFX shots, “The Dark Knight Rises” has 450, “Inception” has about 500, and “Dunkirk” has 429.
●The film production budget is US$205 million, making it the most expensive original film Nolan produced.
●This film shot about 1.6 million feet (approximately 487 kilometers) of IMAX film, breaking the record for Nolan directed films.
●Before the shooting of “TENET”, Nolan had spent at least 20 years in his mind thinking about some of the scenes and plots in the film; he planned for the details and script of the film for about 6 years.
[Behind the scenes analysis]
R & D camera “reverse time and space”
Nolan introduced that one of the biggest technical challenges in shooting “TENET” is that we hope that the IMAX camera can rewind to capture the effects that cannot be taken when the film is shot in the forward direction. IMAX cameras have powerful motors and require care and precision when using them. They can’t rewind at all. The IMAX team is very helpful. They worked with us on research and development, reconstructed the mechanical parts in the film box, and reconstructed the electronics. Components, so Nolan can shoot forward and reverse at the same time.
Nevertheless, the camera can only be used to record changes in time, this single ability is not enough. Nolan knows that the realization of his vision requires “a more complex set of rules than a camera or backward things. There is an interaction between the direction of time and the environment in which we live: such as the way things move around us, and even the air we breathe.” “,” he explained, “the concept of reversal is asymmetrical, so the rule set is complex and must be solved in a more complicated way. This means that various techniques are required to perform from all actors in different directions. Running battle scenes, running stuntmen, to vehicles that can drive forward or backward in various configurations, we need to completely change the technology used to create visual effects on a shot-by-shot basis. Over the years, we have realized that if you can Using a variety of different technologies to continuously change the shooting stunts, the audience will be more immersed in the picture.”
