Returning to the cinema after months of lockdown and finding yourself immersed in the two and a half hours of Tenet, the new film by Christopher Nolan , is like trying to stay standing after having filmed yourself for a quarter of an hour. But in addition to being a visionary film, it is also a hymn to sartorial elegance, which today seems to be a value lost to the detriment of leisurewear .
THE PLOT
Tenet is certainly a film destined to carve out a space for itself in the History of Cinema and the reasons are many. The eleventh work of the British director is the manifesto of his own poetics : Nolan not only shapes time but uses it, distorts it, makes it the protagonist of a temporal Cold War made of past, present and future that intertwine and influence each other. Once again the only tangible thing will be feelings. Tenet is not a palindrome film, but not even a journey through time as we have been accustomed to considering it up to now. It is a spy film where time itself is the weapon to be taken possession of in order to achieve one's goals. The final result is alienating, at times disturbing for the viewer, grappling with continuous jumps and temporal cycles, between "inverted" bullets and explosions that "implode" . The film follows the structure of a spy-story, with action and thriller elements.
The Protagonist, played by John David Washington, is an African-American James Bond dressed in perfect Be Spoke tailoring style who finds himself involved in an international mission – Tenet – to save the world. The goal is to neutralize the Russian oligarch Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh), the only one who possesses the tools and knowledge to manipulate time. On his journey, which will take him around the world – from India to the Amalfi Coast, from Estonia to the United Kingdom – he will be supported by Neil ( Robert Pattinson ), a long-time agent like him. The cast also includes Elizabeth Debicki (actress who will play Princess Diana Spencer in the Netflix series “The Crown”), in the role of Sator’s wife. Tenet contains all the elements of the Magic Square to which it refers. The title, in fact, is inspired by the Latin inscription composed of the words Sator, Arepo, Tenet, Opera and Rotas . A palindrome found in numerous archaeological finds, especially in Europe. It is no coincidence that in one of the scenes of the film, the Sator family – precisely – goes to visit Pompeii , the city where two of the most famous inscriptions were found. If you love beautiful cinema, do not miss Tenet.
THE TIMELESS ELEGANCE OF TENET
There is a passage, a concept, that Nolan makes explicit to one of his key actors, albeit with little screen time, namely Michael Caine , who explains why his film is also a hymn to the male elegance of the past, the one made of pure formality and classic suits. Michael Caine turns to the protagonist and tells him that to carry out the mission “Tenet” with more credibility he must wear elegant clothing. And so the protagonist armed with a credit card adorns himself with Be Spoke tailored suits and knitted polo shirts to face his mission.
The costumes are by Jeffrey Kurland , famous for his previous collaborations with Nolan in Inception and Dunkirk , for the Oscar-winning film Erin Brockovich and for Ocean's Eleven . The intent is not to stage overly fashionable clothes taken from the latest runways in Paris and Milan. The intent is to give voice to a timeless tailoring , like the film, which essentially has no temporal order. Everything is functional to the entropic narration, even the clothes. In fact, in the scene that we could define as the " key " of the film, both Washington and Pattinson are the very emblem of tailoring: the protagonist wears a pinstriped suit with a gray waistcoat, tone-on-tone tie and white shirt. His friend Neil instead wears a double-breasted suit with a pocket square and regimental tie. Both choose a vintage style, avoiding overly skinny suits and preferring, for example, that the trousers fall to the heel of their classic leather Oxfords.
Among the memorable outfits of the film there is also a splendid pink tailored suit worn by Washington, very trendy in recent years, which was paired with a white polo shirt and brown suede boots. Tailored polo shirts that often return throughout the entire narrative, sometimes in black, sometimes in burgundy, sometimes in gray combined with beige chinos as when the protagonist drives a luxury Tender sailing the seas of the Amalfi coast.
Pattinson, who indulges in more vintage reminiscences, also pays homage to classic tailoring with his Safari suits, scarves draped over oversized blazers with soft lapels, and linen suits paired with classic leather belts. In addition, inspired by Dior and Ferragamo, he wears striped shirts that recall the Riviera holiday looks in vogue this year.
The two main protagonists of Tenet are always elegant, even when for strictly technical reasons they are forced to wear technical harnesses and plastic masks that almost seem to be a premonition of the global pandemic that has affected us this year. They are elegant especially during combat, when they find themselves facing their enemies badly dressed, crumpled, with inappropriate clothing. Will the beauty of a timeless style save the world? Maybe not, but an elegant suit, with the right shirt and the right hem of the trousers will help to outline the best version of oneself . At least this is Nolan's message.
