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Tenet · written by Christopher Nolan · 2020
Scene 243 of 275 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act three
An unnamed intelligence operative, recruited into a shadow war fought through time-inverted weapons and objects, teams with an enigmatic ally to stop a dying Russian oligarch from using technology gifted by a dying future to erase the present.
The Protagonist in his zone of comfort — a skilled, anonymous field operative, competent and confident inside the Kiev operation.
Broken by torture and 'killed,' he needs a new purpose; Fay offers one that transcends the nation-state loyalties that just got his team killed.
He enters the wholly unfamiliar situation of Tenet — the wind turbine, the password test, and Barbara's proof that time itself can run backward.
Mumbai, London, Oslo, and Amalfi — he adapts to the world of inverted physics and Sator's inner circle, paying costs (Kat's trust, his own safety) to get close to the target.
The Tallinn ambush succeeds — he gets what the mission wanted, extracting the plutonium '241' from the armored convoy.
He pays a heavy price for it — Kat is shot, the material is lost to Sator anyway, and he is left not knowing whether any of it mattered.
Recovered and re-briefed by Priya, he returns to a now-familiar situation — the Tenet operation — but changed, moving to Stalsk-12 with the full picture of what's at stake.
Neil spots Volkov extracting a booby trap and escaping by helicopter line, then sprints to catch up.
They reach a locked gate blocking the hypocentre cavern and find a dead soldier bearing the same coin talisman as the mysterious Kiev ally.
Sator, on the phone with the Protagonist, muses on the future's motives for destroying the present.
This scene
The Protagonist looks at Volkov. At the bars between him and the capsule...
PROTAGONIST
Now you’re making the same mistake
for the entire world.
SATOR
(over phone)
It wasn’t a mistake. I made the
bargain I could. What was yours?
You fight for a cause you barely
understand. With people you trust
so little you’ve told them nothing
about what you’re doing. When I die
the world dies with me. And your
knowledge dies with you. Buried in
the tomb like an anonymous Egyptian
builder sealed in the pyramid to
keep his secret...