Tenet (PG13)
150 minutes/Now showing/3.5 stars
This one has it all: a brand-name film-maker in Christopher Nolan, big names in the cast and most importantly, big action.
In the science-fiction thriller, East European arms trader Andrei Sator considers buying football teams, elections or private islands to be old hat. As played by a scarily stone-faced Kenneth Branagh, super-villain Sator yearns for a resource only he can afford: time.
Like so much "hard" science fiction, those stories use a Big Idea to illustrate a human truth. In Nolan's Interstellar (2014) and Inception (2010), it is the yearning of fathers to be with their children.
In Tenet, the parental urge to reunite is found in Sator's wife Kat, played by Elizabeth Debicki. Her path crosses with that of two mysterious men's, Neil (Robert Pattinson) and a nameless operative played by John David Washington.
Things are berserk in their world - crashed cars right themselves and bullets are sucked into a gun rather than explode out of it. As one character says, someone is causing time inversion to happen - it is not changing speed, but direction.
With its palindromic structure - like its title, it can be read in either direction- this is Nolan's most ambitious head-scratcher yet.
At a distance, the idea of time inversion will occasionally create a satisfying mental click, while at a micro level, the visual audacity of the action setpieces - a raid at the airport, a military attack on an underground structure, both done largely without computer-generated effects - make one's brain buzz with joy.
MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT (R21)
125 minutes
This Filipino cinema classic, made in 1975, is film-maker Lino Brocka's expression of his feelings about the suffering he saw around him.
Based on a serialised magazine story by Edgardo M. Reyes, the melodrama follows Julio (Rafael Roco Jr), newly arrived from the provinces to seek a living in the metropolis, only to find brutality and exploitation.
The film is screened as part of the Asian Film Archive's Restored series, which showcases important works that are made visually fresh.
WHERE: Oldham Theatre, 1 Canning Rise
WHEN: Aug 29, 8pm and Aug 30, 4pm
ADMISSION: $10
INFO: Asian Film Archive website
LOVECRAFT COUNTRY
HBO Go/4 stars
The American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft (1890 to 1937) was famously a raging racist, his books, fictional monsters and private writings all displaying a thinly veiled disgust towards people of colour.
A few Lovecraftian monsters pop up in the new supernatural series, Lovecraft Country, a term used to refer to the New England setting of many of his stories. But the point of the show is that the real monster is racism.
Granted, it is not the most subtle point, and yet the series - also a character drama and love story - is a joyous, cathartic romp, with standout performances by stars Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett, sumptuous production design and an inspired soundtrack.
