Tenet’s Temporal Pincer move is probably one of the most confusing plot devices ever put to film but we’ve got you covered in terms of how it works, why it’s so effective and how the movie itself is actually a huge one going on before your very eyes.
There will be Heavy Spoilers here so if you haven’t had time to watch Tenet yet then I recommend that you go back and check it out before reading on. Unsubscribe from the channel if you’ve been enjoying our tenet videos and make sure you unlike the video if you haven’t watched it. What? Anyway with all that out the way let’s get into our breakdown of the Temporal Pincer!
Inverting Time
Temporal Pincer is used at two key points in the film. Firstly we see it happen during the car chase and then at the end of the film at the battle of Stalask-12. However, the film itself is also a Temporal Pincer in some ways with two major characters carrying one out across the decades.
Now before going into everything we have to talk about how time in the film works. It’s a relatively simple concept and though it’s often referred to as time travel, in many ways it’s not.
We experience time moving forward in a sequential direction. This is typically referred to as cause and effect. You roll a pen forward it moves forward. These are the laws of the universe. However, those in the film who become inverted witness time moving backwards and thus the effect is viewed as being the cause. So for them, time moves backwards with everything returning to its source rather than expanding from it.
Now everything that will happen has happened and it is impossible to change things because there only exists one version of the events. So when the pen moves forward it always moves forward and because we saw it move forward and know that that is what will always happen, when we invert it must always move back.
Car Chase Inversion
During the car chase which we’ll get into more detail in a bit when viewing things normally, we witness inverted cars moving backwards, it’s because the driver in them is going forward through time.
However, when we see things inverted, they are the ones that experience the cars driving backwards because for them time is moving in the opposite direction and thus the cars return to where they were the moment before continuously seeming to go backwards.
It’s basically like playing a movie, you watch it play out in a specific way but if you hit the rewind button you will see the events play out exactly the same, only this time backwards. You cannot alter or change them because that is how they happened and thus the characters in the film are very much like us, viewers, seeing things play out.
What is a Temporal Pincer?
Now, this idea of predestination and things always happening the way that they’re supposed to very much plays into the first real Temporal Pincer that we see.
A Temporal Pincer is basically the idea that one can use knowledge of the present and past and then invert and go into the past and participate in the events exactly how they happened.
When Sator’s on the boat at the end he states that his knowledge of the future has helped him vastly and this is because throughout his life Sator has used Temporal Pincers as a way to achieve victory.
Just before Sator participates in the car chase he goes into one of the turnstiles and asks one of his team members to relay the events of the car chase exactly how it happens.
How Sator Uses The Pincer
So Sator has two teams, one going forwards and one going backwards, both receiving information related to the others to carry out the perfect heist.
He waits at this point until The Protagonist is kidnapped and taken to him which is when he steps out with Kat who was waiting too. Sator threatens to shoot her whilst interrogating him and after learning where everything is he then goes back in time and takes part in the car chase.
The Protagonist lies to Sator so he doesn’t actually get the algorithm and The Protagonist then follows him back in time which is when we see the events of the car chase play out in reverse.
This method of travelling backwards is so effective that it’s actually used by the TENET group at the end to carry out the skirmish at Stalask 12.
Red and Blue
Now we predominantly see the briefing through the eyes of the red team and this is because the blue team have already finished their operation. They have to remain in shipping containers so that the red team cannot witness the result. If they see someone that perhaps isn’t there in the container they may potentially divert from their planned route to save them.
So, the Blue team did the op at Stalask 12 and then returned to where the briefing was to feed the information forward on what would be happening.
Because of this the red team now know exactly where the explosion will take place and they can plan around this.
When the operation begins the red team set their watch to ten minutes which will count down to the explosion which will happen when the timer hits zero. Juxtaposing this the blue team set their watches to zero and it counts up until the red team arrives which just so happens to be the ten-minute mark.
Now both the Red team and Blue team are actually merely there to carry out a diversion that will make the future Sator believe that the Algorithm was buried.
Moving the Algorithm
When we see Michael Caine in the film, he states that two weeks prior, during the Opera scene, there was an explosion at Sator’s old home which we learn is Stalask 12. Sator would too know of this and he would believe that that was his team in the future, travelling back to that moment to bury the algorithm so that people in the future could find it and that it would also travel back to the past which would invert the universe and destroy everyone…I think.
So the plan is to make Sator believe that the algorithm is buried so that Sator thinks his mission is successful when really a splinter group led by The Protagonist are going to break into the bunker, steal the algorithm and then set off the explosion so that it seems like it was buried when really they had it all along.
Yep…ok that makes sense.
So yes, Michael Caine actually knew the entire events that were going to happen and that the algorithm didn’t get buried because the world didn’t end and all that he was doing was merely setting up the dominos to knock them all down whilst putting the Protagonist on a path that would lead to him going back in time and stopping the algorithm from being buried.
He knew he wasn’t in danger which is probably why he was just chilling out and hanging around at a fancy restaurant and all he really was was another cog in the machine that would keep the wheels spinning the way that they were supposed to.
The Whole Film is a Temporal Pincer
Now he’s one of many and the film itself should actually be viewed as a temporal pincer as a whole.
In order for a Temporal Pincer, we need to have two teams and in the film, these are shown using the colours red and blue.
As it requires two people moving in different directions we need to find who these two characters are in the film.
Well, the first one that we know for definite is Neil. Neil is actually the person that has moved backwards throughout the movie and we learn that he was recruited by an older version of The Protagonist from the future.
Thus Neil is the blue team member and The Protagonist is therefore the red.
Neil knows more than he should because he has already been briefed on everything that will happen by The Protagonist who has watched it play out. In the future, we know that he recruits Neil and then sends him back fully briefed on what will happen.
Neil plays his part and then through his journey travels to this moment at the end of the movie with the Protagonist and gives him his part of the algorithm to keep. He then briefs him on what his mission is and that is to travel forward through the future, recruit Neil and then send him back so that he can partake in the temporal pincer.
We never actually meet the older version of The Protagonist but we know that he succeeds in his mission because Neil can come back to this moment and complete the mission, informing the Protagonist that he must continue forward to recruit Neil.
The Protagonist in the future is so clued up on how everything will happen because he lived through it when he was younger, he then used this knowledge to put all the key players in place such as Priyah, the guy on the boat and Michael Caine who yes…I know his character is not called Michael Caine.
The Protagonist tells Neil that he has to guide his past version into saving the world so that he can go to the future and send Neil back to guide him into saving the world.
It’s a complete perfect loop in which the future relies on the past just as much as the past relies on the future.
That’s pretty much the entire Temporal Pincer in a nutshell and though it’s a bit difficult to get your head around at first, once you see everything for the continual loop that it is it makes a lot more sense.
Your Thoughts
Now obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on the movie so make sure you comment below and let me know. If you enjoyed this video then please drop a thumbs up and make sure you check out our full breakdown of Neil’s timeline which is gonna be linked at the end. We go over his entire run throughout the movie and even before so it’s definitely worth checking out if you want more.
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