Why do the protagonist plan to retrieve the original painting from the freeport in Tenet?

Question

In London, the Protagonist approaches Sator's estranged wife Kat, an art appraiser who falsely authenticated a forged Goya drawing. She tells him that Sator purchased the drawing from the forger, Arepo, and is using Kat's authentication as blackmail to control her in their relationship. The Protagonist and Neil plot to steal the drawing from a freeport storage facility at the Oslo Airport.

If the whole reason for the protagonist to meet Kat was to get introduced to Sator, why do they plan such an elaborate plan to steal the original from the freeport? Why was it important at that point in the movie to free Kat fromSator's blackmail by procuring the original?

Answer 1

There are two reasons for the Freeport raid.

Firstly, as you have already highlighted, the Protagonist wishes to gain Kat's favour and trust by removing the fake Goya from the 'equation', allowing for not only an introduction to Sator but also in order to allow Kat to get Max and herself free from the situation.

Secondly, the Protagonist is simply interested in why the inner vault is so important to Sator as he is of course investigating him and how he gets and / or where he stores his inverted materials. As the Protagonist states to Neil following the mission...

I thought we’d find the drawing and a couple boxes of bullets.

Considering that the whole temporal pincer is not conceived until after the events of the film have finished, it is highly likely that the Protagonist set himself up to conduct the Rotas Freeport raid in order to introduce himself to the concept of the inversion turnstiles and their central importance in both Sator's and Tenet's operations.

Tenet (2020) ScriptSlug