[Lee Jong-gil's Film Reading] What Has Happened Will Happen... Repeated Tragedies

Another Time Travel... Director Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet'
Depicts the Process of Thwarting a Future Force Aiming to Annihilate Ancestors
A Villain Enchanted by Sweet Illusions... Repeating Othello's Mistake
'Memento' Memory as a Revolving Door... Only One Thing Changes

※ This article contains many potential spoilers for the movie.

Protagonist (John David Washington), recognized for his steadfast character in the Ukraine National Theater terror incident, is assigned the grave mission of preventing World War III. He must travel through time to seize the final algorithm (Plutonium 241) sought by Sator (Kenneth Branagh).

The mastermind behind Sator is a future faction. Humanity’s survival is threatened due to resource waste and environmental pollution. They aim to restore a suitable environment by annihilating ancestors. To reverse all entropy, they track the whereabouts of nine algorithms containing the formula. The protagonist sets out to stop the plan by finding Sator. There is only one clue.

"I will give you one word: 'Tenet.' It will guide you on the right path or the wrong one."

The movie’s title, 'Tenet,' is a Latin word meaning 'to hold' or 'to keep.' It is mainly used to refer to a principle or doctrine. This word appears in a cross shape in the Sator Square, where five words read the same horizontally and vertically. It hints that the protagonist is the world’s savior. The other four words are Sator, Arepo, Opera, and Rotas, meaning 'sower,' 'plow,' 'work,' and 'wheels,' respectively.

In the film, Sator is a wealthy man who facilitates the outbreak of World War III. Arepo and Opera serve as links connecting him and the protagonist. The former is the name of a con artist who forges paintings by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746?1828). He scams Sator’s wife, Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), who is well-versed in Goya’s works. Because of this mistake, Kat remains entangled with her husband all day, to the point where she is suspected of having an affair while introducing the protagonist.

Desdemona from William Shakespeare’s (1564?1616) 'Othello' was in a similar situation. She died because of her husband Othello’s wavering between what exists and what does not. The story that she kissed Cassio was fabricated by Iago. However, the handkerchief presented as evidence to Othello is real. Othello cannot distinguish between the two. He believes the latter and strangles Desdemona to death. Watching this, Iago says:

"O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger; But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!"

This questions whether seeing, and furthermore knowing, is truly seeing or knowing. It is not merely a question posed to men who suspect their lovers or wives. It is a question posed to the majority who confuse reality with illusion. Sator commits the same mistake as Othello. He does not stop at shooting Kat. He tries to obtain the algorithm and deliver it to the future faction. Having terminal pancreatic cancer, he has nothing to fear. In this way, he reveals a destructive exclusiveness, obsessed with the illusion that if he cannot have it, no one else can.

While chasing Sator, the protagonist asks his ally Neil (Robert Pattinson), "If we are here now, doesn’t that mean that event (World War III) didn’t happen?" They mean that by intercepting the algorithm first, the future has not changed. The movie references the Grandfather paradox, reinforcing this assumption. It is the law of causality that cause and effect cannot be reversed within a fixed flow of time. Neil, seemingly already aware, often repeats the proverb, "What’s done is done."

Sator also soon knows he will die. With a confident face, he agrees with the future faction’s agitation. However, the future he achieves looks increasingly grim. He apologizes to Kat and even calls his son Max (Lori Sheppard), whom he had no interest in. On the verge of suicide, he is finally gripped by anxiety and fear, seeking support from his family.

The look of fear closely resembles Goya’s 'Saturn Devouring His Son' (1821?1823), a painting he favored. It depicts the god Saturn (Cronos), who, fearing losing his position, devoured his sons one by one. He cruelly places the child’s left arm in his mouth. The wide-open eyes convey fear. It is a mixture of anxiety about possibly losing the throne and the misery of having to keep devouring his son.

Saturn, like Sator, is a farming god whose name means 'sower.' He overthrows his father Caelus (Uranus) and ascends the throne but is eventually overthrown by his son Jupiter (Zeus). Sator’s fate is no different. He wields absolute power and tries to drive out his contemporaries but is ultimately driven to death by the future faction.

Goya produced many dark and grotesque works in his later years. They expressed his troubled mind, suffering from hearing loss and Spain’s chaotic politics. Until his death, he painted while confronting death. 'Saturn Devouring His Son,' painted at that time, is believed to allude to the Spanish Civil War. It expresses generational conflict and the time of death.

Death remembered in the face of great fear is often represented by 'Memento mori,' a Latin phrase meaning 'Remember your death.' Inspired by this, director Christopher Nolan created 'Memento' (2000). The theme is memory. Everyone has a past, present, and future. Following these in chronological order leads inevitably to death. Memory allows one to transcend this natural phenomenon, letting past time flow over present time.

In 'Tenet,' memory transforms into a revolving door made by Rotas. It allows time to be reversed or the entropy of objects to be inverted, creating opportunities to intervene in each space-time. However, nothing changes. Only reasons to think about and prepare for death are discovered. This is an existential trait humans bear and our life. Sator desperately denies this. He clings to his family until the end, intoxicated by sweet illusions. Excessive illusions are like a branding iron that supports reason. They blind one forever in reality. The ending is exactly as Shakespeare showed.