TENET - Hidden Meanings (Things You Missed) 

Let's dive deep into the hidden meanings and messages of TENET!

On my second viewing, I immediately got excited once I realised why the WB and Syncopy opening logos were in red and blue. On first viewing I thought, “Huh, I wonder why the logos are red and blue,” and forgot about it for the rest of the film. Subtle foreshadowing on Nolan’s part.

Omg My mind is blown after the 5th watch. The movie finally clicked for me . everything I thought made no sense and was confused about . I just realized makes perfect sense. The movie is perfectly crafted ones you unlock Tenet. Nolan is genius he's just ahead of he's time . people might be not smart enough. For he's movies I'm starting to think that's the problem. The more I watch this movie the more I love it . this is becoming my fav movie like inception

There was a line in the film that said something like: "Faith is what makes human beings, human." Fantastic line. Fantastic Film.

Explaining Tenet's Ending scene -> a. How in Neil's perspective did the bullet move and kill him in the end ? b. How did Door lock unlock process work at end from Neil's perspective ? Before getting to that lets get some facts that the movie gave us - 1. Neil in the End(The scene where they distribute parts of the algorithm) knew that he had to go back and open the lock . 2. Neil also knew he was not going to come out alive .(Based on the dialogue -" This is an end to a beautiful friendship for me " with the protagonist ). 3. Neil had also seen the protagonist experience of the wound in his arm in Oslo (both in forward and inverted directions) . Its Elaborated below . Now Answering -> How in Neil's perspective did the bullet move and kill him in the end ? Answer - In the scene in Oslo when The Protagonist(Inverted) is moving backwards in the time and is about to fight himself(who is moving forward and to his eye seems reversed ) , we see that the wound starts to develop slowly and keeps worsening as he moves forward in the inverted direction . It even starts to bleed when he is almost at the fighting point and Neil offers to mend it but due to lack of time is unable to tend to it . Based on the same concept - In the end , Maybe as Neil moved in the Inverted direction , bullet slowly started to develop in his head and his head started to hurt maybe. And then based on Facts (1,2 and 3) at this point he knows that he is supposed to take a bullet to his head and die . And finally when he reaches the point where he is shot , it is pulled out of his head and he dies . Now Answering -> How did Door lock unlock process work at end from Neil's perspective ? Answer - (An assumption is made here that the door was an auto locking door .) Notice when Neil in the Inverted Direction approaches towards the door , the door is locked and the protagonist and Ives are fighting the bad guy . He then opens the door . At this point he is doing something with the door (which is the only part I did not get) and is waiting , for the gun to be drawn towards the protagonist and come in between and take the inverted bullet and die . When he dies he falls down and mistakenly closes the door . And that is why from the protagonist's point of view when protagonist first reaches the door (in the normal forward direction) , the door is locked . Peace out .

A big divide in Tenet's audience: those who had seen the Dark series and those who hadn't.

This explanatory video is as complex as the movie with all that linguistic research around the meaning of using the Sator square 😁

Nice details and hidden meanings, like it. Watched TENET for two times, and now i am a super fan of the movie. Thats why i want to add super tiny details that can enlight your path 🧸 1- Neil is Maximilien, i do believe so. ( When Kat was injured and lying in ambulance with the Protagonist and Neil in it, her hands was like the Vulcan Salute 🖖 which means long live, greetings and good wishes. From his mother to the son) 2- When the Protagonist and Neil in the ship, and talking about the last operation,there was something written there “Ships are safe in our harbor, but thats not what ships are made for” that means “take the risk” which is a direct message. 3- Movie starts with the opera scene where we first meet with the inverted bullets. The Protagonist saw the bullet came out from the ground, and that ground was BLUE also. For now 3 is enough, cheers 🥂

Second viewing made it all worthwhile. Nolan movies require that you watch them more than once to really appreciate them. I find this to be the case with any true work of art.

[01:05] ..."I would recommend watching this video after you've seen it." Nice choice of wording for a review such as this! Thanks to Cortex Videos for this tidy little series of analysis. Well done!

I like to think that Neil and TP both spent a decade inverted together and got into some things, went on adventures and stuff before Neil has to go work with the younger version of TP. And TP we see at the very end saving Kat is the older protag. Idk. lol. I want to see Neil and TP's backward adventures thru time as a sequel!

Just wanted to say if Neil moves backwards in time he would age up and not down. So he would not have to live in the inverted reality in order to be a kid again he would simply exist as an older version of himself while at the same time the younger him would be around as well. Just like there would also be a middle aged version of him. There is always 3 versions of yourself once inverted and in Neils case there would technically be 5. I know it’s confusing but this is how entropy works in physics.

The ending really made me like the protagonist quite a bit. It makes you imagine what adventures them two were up to. I guess it's like how when reading a book you get a lot from imagining than you do from the words given to you. But I do understand how someone who likes backstories might dislike that.

Sator square meaning in Latin is “The seeder (SATOR, Latin nominative masculine singular) AREPO (a name) drives (TENET, derived from teneo which means to hold, to guide, to drive) the wheels (ROTAS, accusative plural, presumably the wheels of the plough) with effort (OPERA, ablative)”. In this case I think sator square is a quite accurate metaphor of the film itself, with sator being the main driven cause behind the world’s destruction. Unlike the Latin phrase however, he does not hold anything at all. Sator would like to be the master in his mission, but in fact who holds (TENET) the game’s rules is JD which is the material executor if somebody else’s plan to save the world through inversion.

Interesting and a nicely documented analysis my friend. Concerning NEIL identity here it is: look at MAX’s bagpack at the end of the movie ;) I guess it’s all there. (EDIT: + the final voice over with what’s NEIL calls “the true power to change the world”) Great job done here mate keep this up!

I just saw it yesterday in theatres and I've been non-stop watching every analysis I can find.

Simply awesome! Your video accurately reveals so many layers in the film, and explains what Nolan was aiming at. Thank you for making this!

Loved Tenet, can't wait to see it a third time!

Of all the videos explaining tenet, this one tops it. However... 1) To travel back 10 days in time, one has to live inverted for 10 days??? 2) while Kat 2.0 is in the future with her son Max, where is Kat 1.0?

The first time I watched Tenet, as the movie went on the world started looking more and more like the Temporal War but the way they were arriving to that point was in reverse. It blew my mind.

other films: knowledge is power tenet: the less you know the better

YESS!! Been waiting since yesterday! 😆 thank you!!

love the high quality production of your videos man. good depth

A great video as always. It's incredible how the words of the magic square can tell the story of inversion. Always a pleasure to watch your content.

About Goya painting, it is appropriately used in movie. Francisco Goya made a series of works called Black paintings, in which he showed his fears and disgust, a testimony what happened with Spain in first two decades of 19th century. The famous painting from that series is Saturn eats own children.

I have theory about Neil... In the film Kat can see her son only for few minutes after school, Max is taken by his father guard directly from school... And now is though part which can be difficult to discribe due to my bad english... Max doesnt have to go back decades to the moment that he was a child, but as a child he can goes inverted for about 7 years past and invert again to live next seven years to the future so he could be grown up in exactly time when the protaginist should start his work....

Yet again you deliver the goods mate, very insightful video on an extremely tricky film to try and explain

I haven't made it to movie yet, but I think watching this will actually make it better. For me. Sounds like I'll be needing a little help understanding some of concepts before I see it. Thanks John❤❤

awesome analysis Cortext! One thing I'm not totally sold on yet is the opening of tenet the opera siege that's where I get confused, I'm not convinced that was a test for the protagonist for him to get into the tenet organization, I think its a timeline where sator has control over the protagonist and bargains with him that if he is able to find a part of the algorithm or plutonium he will spare kats life, Neil shows up and he is already using inverted bullets at the opera siege it's as if he is preventing him and when he gets to the train tracks he looks visibly ill as if the world is inverted and he needs oxygen to breathe. I would love to hear what you think! because the opera siege aways makes my head hurt because I know that there is more than meets the eye

Just because you didn't get it the first time.. doesn't mean the movie is bad. It's a film that makes you think back after you get out of the cinema. It's a film that has to be rewatched again and again because you'll find a new thing each time watching it. The Protagonist is us, we are the ones who set the flims plot as we grow older. It's a plot-driven film, hence you don't associate yourself with the characters but the film plot. We create and perceive the ideas as we watch the film. And by the end of the movie, we are the ones who write the protagonist's future on how he built Tenet.

God, i pray that Nolan keeps these coming

I absolutely loved TENET! Can't wait to watch it the first time.

I have yet to find a video that mentions the one line in the movie about the Feynman Wheeler theory. It is the "one electron universe" theory, (more as a joke than seriously), that a positron is just an inverted electron going backwards through time, so that every electron is actually just a future/past version of every other electron and positron in the universe, so there is only one particle in the universe, bouncing back and forth between pair production and annihilation. It would explain why every electron has the same physical properties and how pair production works, seemingly creating two opposite particles from nothing.

Pattenson's character is actually the child grown up. Returning in time to fix the life of his mother at the same time fixing his life in turn. One of last lines gives it away as He and Tenent converse that they've had much time togethet and that he was the one who inspired him.

I would love to watch Timeless redo by Nolan where time is a commodity for the rich; but with a twist.

You can invert a week at a time, revert to get food, gather resources, and recruit Tenet members. It’s not implausible Neil goes back for 10 years, it’s implausible that Tenet is so big without 10 years of time travel

omg Inception cast roles spells DREAMS PAY 🙏😃

neil is definitely max. it's clear as day when you look at their interactions and dialogue. whenever people talk about this they completely forget about/miss the scene where the protagonist tells neil that he isn't going to stay in contact with kat, and neil gives him a VERY SPECIFIC LOOK and questions him about that statement. and if neil is an inverted max it still makes perfect sense that he wouldnt be using the same name. 1) he's involved in spycraft. 2) he'd have to be going back through time normally after un-inverting himself, and thus running the chance of interacting with kat (his mother). knowing this would be a possibility would be a reason explicitly NOT to go by Max, so as to not give kat any reason to make the connection. or the protagonist, for that matter.

When you mentioned the red and blue...I suddenly remembered the ideas of redshift and blueshift! With objects shifting to the red end of the spectrum when moving away, and shifting to the blue end when they are moving towards the viewer. I remember learning about this in the few astronomy classes I took in college. Not sure if this fits the time stuff in Tenet, though, since the red rooms are where people are moving forward in time, and blue is the people moving backwards. However...I guess that would be dependent upon perspective!

Epic analyzed description of the hidden messages and meanings in Tenet!!! Bravo

Lots of love from india . Waiting for more videos & theories on tenet . Thank you

Thanks for the analysis!

Neil is her son. He knew the exact date that the incident happened on the boat. It was such an important day when he was a kid, that he remembered it. The protagonist asked 'How do you know that?" He was there! ( or I guess he could have been just going through time and saw it... but no...lol)

What does it mean the red (medal or logo ) in Neil bag in last scene in the movie ??

Riddle me this. Why doesn't Neil have his own oxygen supply if he is going back through the timeline? Some need masks while other's don't (ie. Cat)?

So is it possible that the sator square was just carved out by some bored Roman?

who puts the first algorithm at the opera? who is the protagonist trying to save there?

this movie has more characterization than many bond movies

The female scientist said in the beginning that the invention could make some change our past. It doesn't mean that it is done necessarily for evil. That is what Neil (Max) is doing. He is from a doomed future and is going back to change it.

Movies like this separate the wolves from the sheep.

Isn't Max rather MAXIMILIAN, than MAXIMILIEN? Even wikipiedia says so. :)

This summarizes Neil: "Time Isn't the Problem, Getting Out Alive Is the Problem". SPOILERS: He won't.

Red oxygenated and Blue representing the old unoxygenated blood returning to be reanimated by the Heart which may also represent the wheel of time that never stops perhaps even in death. Just a thought.... Cheers

The planes in the airport scene which airline are they? timeline 36:50

Sator, AR EPO, TENE/T, OP ERA, ROTAS : The Godfather (Sator-Sascha Tor from the Thumben Tor Parcival) of Oss (Ar/Ass/Oss) from the oher Side (Tene) comes with his Vehicle (Rotas) and his armee and heralds a new age.

Thanks for these videos. I have seen TENET twice at the cinema and can't wait to get it on blu ray! I found it interesting that we see the protagonist wearing purple (at least) twice in the film - firstly he has a purple tie when meeting Sir Michael, and at the end of the film he wears a purple waistcoat in the car when he kills Priya. What do you think of the significance of this, seeing as purple is a mixture of red and blue? I do not believe that was simply a wardrobe choice - it must have been deliberately chosen for symbolic reasons. Unless I'm mistaken, didn't someone have to travel back in time at least 30 years to leave the algorithm/gold and instructions for Sator to find as a teenager? That is much longer than the 10+ years Neil would have had to endure if he is Max.

There is an even deeper meaning to this film that none of us will ever realize until we become intimately acquainted with occult symbolism and secret societies

I have a theory. What about the protagonist being arepo?

Neil says he gets recruited years from then. So he still need to go back in time for years. Which is still crazy. So why not go back in time for 10? Itd be like towards the end where they had to do the final pincer attack for 10 minutes forwards and 10 minutes inverse. What do you think?

Great Vid!!!

Tenet is a perfect circle

Chris Nolan didnt create this movie to make audience cry in cinema. No Way. Just enjoy the science or pseudo-science behind this film and feel like you are reversed back in time

i thought the ending scene was very powerful where it cuts at the last part, as if Nolan saying that our World would be much better if SON-MOTHER stayed together forever unlike Iraq war where mother and son get separated either by death or brainwashing them. it was a straight message to the world if a true raltion if held very strong to the roots the world would be a better place to live in

No doubt Neil should have a relation with Max. Maybe the war between Sator friends from future if there any continuous. And one more point that's Nolan movies never used Black man to play even important roles. Hidden message was the Protagonist before was setting White man naturally but due to important task he need to become a Black man whos forget everything no matter plastic surgery and should engagement of Copper for dreaming brainwash to forget the past programs. Narrative always said person will be strong if the innocent or simple mind.

Anyone. I have one question. Why is there 3 protagonist in the airport fight scene?

TENET is Nolan’s TENth Film

Explain take shelter movie

We need hairpin diagram

AREPO is OPERA inverted

From the movie, I picked up that he's the Einstein of Film making

Neil is the inverted end of Maximilien...

Nolan is Brilliant. He once said in an interview he wanted the audience to think and stop being so lazy and that this was down to Hollywood. I loved this movie and came to my own conclusions. Thanks Mr Nolan. So many LAZY People cracked up and I saw people walk out, agin well done Red and blue Who has them colors in America?

even if neil isn't max, how is he in the past? where's the oxygen mask? and whys he not inverted? im confused, just my first viewing, ill watch it again i promise.

You forgot that Neil speaks Lithuanian as well.

Idk how nolan was able to pull this off honestly, and i didnt think bout the dark series but i wonder how nolan put this idea together. I honestly wanted to movie to be longer lol. The only bad thing bout the movie is the sound but thats no reason to say its not a masterpiece

Also... protagonist 'dies' in the beginning and now lives without a name or any history, an invisible man

Good movie though ahead of its own time and behind on others 👁👄👁

Christopher Nolan should change his surname to 'NOLON'!! 😉🇮🇳

I thought you gonna talk about global warming stuff

Neow?

Ricky Jarret was a terrible choice for a leading role this should’ve been a Denzel Washington movie. Even Jamie Fox or fk me Ice Cube would’ve done a better job lol

Hidden meanings and things you missed? You mean like everything.

12:03 wasn’t he fighting the other Neil not himself? Because Neil was chasing The protagonists

Damnit. The story is NOT A LOOP. It's a very twisted line, with a beginning and an ending.

Sorry but Maxwell daemon has nothing to do with the time chambers or colors in the movie it is just a forced interpretation by you

Production wise, the movie is a triumph, but it's not a movie with any sort of meaningful core. I get the meta level to it, that the audience experiences the film rather like an inverted character the second time they see it, but is there honestly anything to be absorbed, even when you see the puzzle fit together? Neil loves the protagonist to the point he lays his life down for him...but why? Where is the proof of this great friendship? It the film was billed as a sequel to Inception, where loose ends like that can be cleared up because the events are happening in a dream/movie and are therefore not real, then Tenet would work just fine. I will say this though, it is Nolan's most interesting film since The Prestige, though it is nowhere near as compelling on a first viewing.

esrever ni niaga mlif siht hctaw ot deen I

For the last time, Neil isn't max. This is just some bullshit theory that makes no sense.