■ The purpose of this article is not to explain the entire story of "TENET," which is said to be difficult to understand. Here, we will philosophically consider the significance of Christopher Nolan's use of Time Axis ( yes, let's say time as linearized thing, in a word, Time Axis, rather than concept of time ) as important basis of his work.
■ As you can see from the many sites that explain the this film, none of them mention why Nolan sticks to the idea of time. In this, a uniform "Non-knowing" ( in the meaning a la Nolan ) appears, as if temporality is merely a trick of the cinematic setup.
■ There are many people who are aware that "TENET ( 2020 )" is a modernized version ( not a sequel ) of "MEMENT (2000)," but there is "Non-knowing" that cannot think of why Nolan has been obsessed with time for 20 years ( a period of time ), and that there is more to it than just a physical curiosity that supports the idea of a film set up. Becuse of something more than physical curiosity, Nolan kept on thinking about it for a long time, and he kept on sticking to his desire to realize it even by using the reality of cinema.
■ The two timelines of this film ... the normal irreversible timeline from past to present and present to future, and the regressive timeline from future to past, are represented from the beginning of the film as two freight trains going in different directions ( 1~2 ).
■ What is interesting is the sequence that unnamed man ( John David Washington ) is captured with a rescuer ( probably a CIA spy ) in a fake terrorist attack at a Ukrainian opera house and tortured by Russians in the blank space between the two trains going in different directions in parallel. ( 3~6 )
■ This blank space is the only moment in which the two timelines temporarily stop interfering with each other, and in which Nolan attempts to let us, the audience, to catch sight and understand the truth of the story ( this structure, in which the truth is slightly revealed at the beginning, is common to "Mement" ). If we overlook this, the descent from the fake terrorist attack at the opera house to this point will be very difficult to understand. Therefore, it is worthwhile to consider the only moment in which the blank space appears, because it is difficult to achieve the entire consistency of the story caused by the film's two time logics, even if we can understand them ( two time logics ).
■ First of all, it is already wrong to accept without question when the rescued protagonist is told by the CIA after scene 6 that the terrorist attack was actually a test, as the pure starting point of this story. In the midst of the attack, the protagonist somehow puts on a mask ( a mask ... a sign that he is acting against time ) with a Russian agent to assist the CIA spy (or so it seems). Those who understand that this is connected to the last 10 minutes of the pincer operation will see that "the act in inverted time" has already begun.
■ However, terrorist attack was only a superficial assertion on the CIA's side, whereas the real intention on the Russian's side was to use the terrorist attack at the Kiev Opera House as decoys to seize the plutonium and capture the spies who leaked the information.
■ The position of the Russian side corresponds to the attack from the future side in the last 10-minute pincer operation, while the CIA's position corresponds to the attack from the normal position ( The logical structure of this part is complex and will be discussed in detail in Chapter 6 ). In this way, in the last 10 minutes of the pincer operation, the two sides were supposed to be allies, but, through the protagonist's actions, they were rewritten as if they were enemies. There is where the protagonist's malice is inserted, and I will mention the truth of this later.
■ The problematic question is who is this spy that the protagonist rescued. We get a hint here from the reaction of a Russian dignitary ( not necessarily in uniform, but dressed in a military-like uniform so that the audience will recognize him as Russian ) when the protagonist barges into a special section to watch the opera. He immediately pulls out his gun, thinking he is about to be attacked. In other words, he is aware that he is a spy who is betraying his country. Here, Nolan adds a further detail that no one would notice. The protagonist sees the Russian's reaction to pulling out his gun, instantly recognizes that he is the real spy, and intentionally takes the other person with him ( hence a line from the Russian saying, "It's a different person" is inserted in response).
■ We don't know who the other person is, but the protagonist takes him with him after determining that he is not a real spy and therefore will not get important information about who created the argonism ( or plutonium ). The protagonist, who knew that he would be tortured because he was suspected to be the real spy, thought that he would lose his life as a result of that person ( if he is the real spy ) speaking out under the torture in the scene ( 1~6 ). The protagonist knew that he ( the other person ) could not tell the truth no matter how much he was tortured because he did not know the truth.
■ So it is important to note that the protagonist's attempt to poison himself here is not rash and desperate act ( no matter how much it may seem so ), because he knows that the fact that he has developed an algorithm in the future is consequence of his continuing to live from the past. His only concern is that someone might intentionally extinguish his life with "the act in inverted time" by the algorithm. But that concern is dismissed by the black jokes of the Russian torturers who indicate that they are going to extend the time of torture by turning back the hands of the clock that was by their side. That's because it shows that they know about the algorithm but are behaving that way because they haven't got it yet. Because if the algorithm is actually available, there's no need to go to the trouble of imitating it that way. The protagonist, knowing this, is trying to kill himself by poisoning himself with the calculation that his life will be saved ( a calculating attitude that is difficult for the audience to understand, which is also common with the protagonist of "Memento" ).
■ Although the protagonist's behavior is that of as double agent who takes advantage of both the Russians and the CIA, he is not normal double agent in the sense that he provides information to both sides, but rather he is "Acting Subject / Agent" with no Name but Malice in the sense that he deceives both sides in order to survive. In addition, he takes advantage of the "duality" of irreversible timeline ( normal passage of time ) and regressive timeline ( moving backward from the future to the past ) in order to deceive the other party. In other words, he knows everything while the other party is "Non-knowing", or rather, he knows everything and is able to make the other in the state of "Non-knowing".
■ To make the other party "Non-knowing" means that even if he knows the logic of "the act in inverted time", he will remain unaware of "the Progressive Present" in which my own identity is changing, "the Factual Past" in which it has changed, and "the Possible Future" in which it will change. Only the protagonist knows the nature of this intra-temporal phenomenon in which man's own identity changes in secret, and he intentionally erases his own identity so that the other party will not notice it. Just as an algorithm is somehow transformed into plutonium. It doesn't mean that the person is the same person all the way back to the future as the other party thinks he is. It can be the same person on the outside but different on the inside ( in which case a different person is killed by mistake ), the same person on the inside but changes the outside ( which can be traced back and killed ), the same person on the outside and inside but pretends to be a different person ( acting insane ), the same person without a name ( without a name, so there is no objectification, i.e., no existence ), etc.
■ if Various Things that disturb "Human identity" are included in time as instantaneous things, even if the phenomenon of inverted time occur, In there, "Unstable Event" in which the act of objectifying a particular person itself is no longer certain is involves ( but this does not mean that identity is completely annihilated, It remains as a minimum necessary indicator ). As a result, Nolan presents us with situation in which the protagonist has no name and the audience does not know who he is.
■ Taking the above into consideration, what we need to consider here is not understanding the time structure of "TENET" and its underlying story, but what exactly is the protagonist's purpose. This is what is most overlooked in " TENET" as well as in "MEMENT". To concentrate only on understanding the story is to lose sight of the true purpose of the protagonist. Or, to take it to the extreme, Nolan is making the audience attempt to know the anomalous physical time structure of the film, and thus, he is calculating a state of "Non-knowing" by distracting the audience's attention from the true intention of the protagonist.
■ Just when the audience thinks they understand the logical structure of the film, they actually know nothing about the truth. In other words, when the audience thinks they understand the "objectivity" of Nolan's temporal logic, they do not realize that this objectivity is actually nothing more than "logical alibi" to disguise Subjective Act that is only for the use and personal use of the protagonist based on his Desire ( to hide his true intentions ).
■ We need to recognize that the protagonist of this film is not the kind of "caught-up" protagonist we see in Hitchcock's films ( e.g., "Take a Northwestern Course " ). He does not get caught up in the time structure of the film by accident, on the contrary, he takes advantage of it with his own strong will. Those who do not realize this will not be aware of the intentions of the protagonist of "MEMENT" as well as of "TENET," and will instead be completely misled into believing that his purpose is to save the world from the chaos and destruction caused by the algorithm.
■ The scene in which Seiter reveals his desire to destroy the world through an algorithm to the protagonist may give the audience the impression that Seiter is evil and the protagonist is good, but this is Nolan's manipulation of the impression to obscure the truth. If you understand the truth of "MEMENT," you will realize that Nolan has actually departed from such an easy-to-understand good-versus-evil scheme.
■ Sator is indeed evil, but his evil is "self-destructive evil" that abandons "survival" to let himself die, taking the rest of the world with him. In contrast, the protagonist's evil is the use of his wits to focus on his own survival, so he practices "paradoxical act of self-preservation" in an attempt to save the world, thinking that he too will die if the world perishes. In other words, Tenet's protagonist does not act to save the world, but to preserve his own life based on thorough "egoism" so that the world will not perish ( there is ruthlessness in that, not caring that some people will die in the process ). What started the story was not the fear that the invention of an algorithm would endanger the world, but the recognition of the paradox that the algorithm could take the life of its developer, himself.
■ So how did the protagonist move to save his life? Simply thinking of this as the use of an algorithm is not an answer. This is because the function of the algorithm is already common assumption known to everyone except the protagonist. Within this framework, the protagonist could one day be traced back to the developer of the algorithm through the passage of time toward the future, and his life could be extinguished by someone else who uses the algorithm.
■ In such situation where the algorithm is known to everyone, the most effective logical method to protect one's life is, as described in Chapter 3, to make one's existence unidentifiable ( so the protagonist does not have a name ). If everyone else does not know who you are, it will be impossible to place the unknown person at the starting point of a time line that will lead to the developer of the future algorithm. Even if everyone knew in advance who would create the algorithm in the future, the person who would be "the who" in the future cannot be identified as "the who" at this present time. In other words, it would be impossible to kill "the who" developed the algorithm at this present time ( which means that there will be people who will be killed by mistake or who will have to be killed by mistake ). This is the logic of the protagonist's choice to protect his own life.
■ If so, how exactly does the protagonist create such "de-identification logic" for survival? We will consider this in the next section.
■ To understand the actions of the protagonist, it is not enough to understand that the film has two timelines: irreversible timeline and regressive timeline. The reason is that everyone else is on the same cognitive plane in the sense that they are also acting by exploiting the difference between the two timelines. The protagonist still cannot escape from a situation in which his life is in danger. The only way out is to take advantage of the consequences of using the algorithm for one's own survival, something that everyone else is not yet aware of.
■ So what are the matters and consequences of which everyone is unaware? Before we consider that, let us recall how the nature of the anti-temporal behavior worked before the last 10-minute pincer operation. Through "turnstile", one goes from the irreversible time line in which one belongs to the regressive time line from the future to the past, and knows the future events. Then, through "turnstile", one returns again to the present, and "the act in inverted time" becomes possible. In other words, "the act in inverted time" before the last pincer operation was "the act in inverted time" performed in the present irreversible time line, which immediately changes the future that awaits us in that time line.
■ But in the last pincer operation, another meaning of "the act in inverted time" appears. This is the crucial difference that many people overlook, but what is this another meaning? Previous "the act in inverted time" were carried out in "the Present-Space" dominated by the irreversible time line, and they are "the act in inverted time" based on the regressive time line, where only our actions partially go against the flow from the present to the future. However, the pincer operation in the last part is execution not in "the Present-Space" but in "the Altered-Space" dominated by regressive time line, "the act in inverted time" based on irreversible time line ( forward time line ) where only their actions partially oppose the regressive flow from the future back to the past ( as can be seen from the collapse of the opera house and its surroundings into a debris field ).
■ This means that "the act in inverted time" does not necessarily imply that it is based solely on regressive time line. "The act in inverted time" has came to change in its meaning depending on which Space ( Present, or Altered ) it is executed in. "The act in inverted time" in the present-space ( where most of this film's combat takes place ), which is dominated by our usual irreversible time line ( forward time axis ), will be regressive. However, in the last case, in the Altered-Space, which is dominated by the regressive time line, "The act in inverted time" is irreversible ( forward temporal ). Thus, we can say that there are two types of "the act in inverted time".
■ In order to survive, the protagonist exploits this difference as opportunity for subtle and decisive change in the reproduction of repeated events. The pincer operation designed to seize the algorithm from the enemy is somehow initiated in the Altered-Space dominated by regressive timeline, unlike the pattern of the previous cases. This is not the Present-Space in which we normally live. The most important thing is to grasp the power of life and death in the Present-Space, and to lose this struggle means death. Therefore, it is even more strange to see the well-known methods in the Present-Space being replaced by "the act in inverted time" in the Altered-Space, because it contains the secret intention of the protagonist.
■ Naturally, "the act in inverted time" preemptively executed in the Altered-Space is rewritings in forward time that go against the flow of the regressive time line, but this is only a story in the Altered-Space, and it cannot be reflected as it is in the Present-Space, where the irreversible time line ( forward time line ) still dominates. The event rewritten in the future ( the seizure of the algorithm ) is not maintained as stopping there, but in the Altered-Space, time is still rewinding back to the past, so naturally the event ( even the fact that the algorithm was seized ) is also eventually swept away, changed, and transformed. The rewritten rewinding is the resultant event that appears in the present-space, that is to say, the hostile position of the CIA and Russia over what seems to be the algorithm in the opera house at the beginning of the film ( at the beginning of this film, the concept of the algorithm is changed to nuclear material, a military threat in the Cold War structure ). Needless to say, this is thing that strategic lines in pincer operation have changed, and the protagonist is no longer the developer of the algorithm ( the algorithm has moved to nuclear material, so we no longer know who developed it ), but an unidentified, nameless man.
■ The situation that most audiences do not understand about the battle in the opera house at the beginning of the film is precisely because the protagonist has successfully achieved a state of "Non-knowing" that deceives everyone except himself. In this series of confusing situations, the protagonist may not be able to escape from the time-structure of the recurrence of his life, but he has succeeded in saving his life by erasing his identity.
■ In this work, the protagonist's will to survive and his obsession to live are embodied in malicious knowledge, "Evil-knowledge", in which he exploits the time structure to deceive everyone. This is not philosophical attempt to genuinely know the logic of the time structure itself, but rather, the protagonist's obsession for his own survival causes his sublimation into "Evil-knowledge", which deceives everyone. Such "Evil-knowledge" erects the time-concept and time-structure as strong protective barrier for its own survival, and hides its true intentions from everyone's eyes. Here in lies a "pseudo-elitist evil". Unlike the stupid evil of a desperate person who indiscriminately involves others in an attempt to destroy himself, here is a thoroughly egocentric evil in which the survival of others is not a problematic issue before the goal of one's own survival. What such a selfish person needs is the intelligence to deceive others, that is, "Evil-knowledge".
■ This image of the egocentric is shared not only by TENET's protagonist, but also by the protagonist of MEMENT. The will to survive at all costs has outgrown its primordial passionate form of action and has chosen to become a more economical, rational, deceitful "Evil-knowledge" itself. This distorted image of the protagonist via his intellect has already been completed in "MEMENT," and the protagonist in Nolan's later works can even be said to be variant of that image. If this is one of the true figures of human beings that Nolan confronts us with, then intelligence is no longer crowned with a solitary act of thinking about something logically, but has become only a superficial "disguised intelligence" that calculates how an external act that seems to be thinking has meaning and value to the other person.
