Photo via Dune Official Site dunemovie.com
Dune still
Dune has been the graveyard of filmmakers’ dreams. In the ‘70s Alejandro Jodorowsky tried but failed when the budget swelled beyond his means. David Lynch got Dune made, but his 1984 production disappointed his fans and confused multiplex audiences. Earlier this century, several prospective Dunes failed to launch. Denis Villeneuve comes to the project as the science-fiction director of the intriguing indie film Arrival (2016) followed by the bloated Blade Runner 2049 (2017). His Dune raced to the top of box office receipts on opening night, even with its simultaneous debut on HBO Max.
As written by Frank Herbert, the 1965 novel Dune tapped into themes that remain or have become relevant again. Set in a galactic empire of the sort that went mainstream with Star Wars (Herbert must have influenced George Lucas), Dune concerns a desert planet, Arakis, strategically important for its one natural resource, a substance known as “Spice.” Consciousness expanding, and crucial for interstellar travel, Spice is like the psychedelic and the petroleum of a future civilization, extracted from the soil of a world whose indigenes, the Fremen, are waging guerilla war against their imperialist exploiters. Herbert (and Villeneuve) depicts them much as T.E. Lawrence represented the Bedouin of Arabia as noble savages fierce but true.
In Villeneuve’s Dune, Timothée Chalamet plays the protagonist, Paul, heir to the House Atreides. The Emperor has just granted Atreides the monopoly over harvesting and processing the Spice of Arakis, shifting control over the valuable property from the rival House Harkonnen. Paul’s father, the Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac), a shrewd and relatively enlightened ruler, perceives that the Emperor is setting up a conflict between the House Atreides and the brutal Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), is a disciple of the Bene Gesserit, the empire’s powerful, matriarchal religion. The sect’s pontiff, Reverend Mother Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), has plans that could unfold over centuries, including breeding a messianic figure. Could Paul be the evolutionary leap they seek? And what about that young Fremen woman who stalks Paul’s dreams even before he sets foot on Arakis, Chani (Zendaya), one of the leaders of the struggle to free her planet from off-world invaders?
In this Game of Thrones galaxy, the plot twists like a knife in a traitor’s hand despite the feudal loyalty of many secondary characters. Chalamet brings a brooding, Hamlet-like aspect to Paul; Ferguson’s Lady Jessica is fervent in her beliefs and her love for Paul; and Isaac plays the firm but fair father, a nobleman by inclination as well as birth. We’ll see more of Zendaya’s Chani—if the sequel gets the green light. The actors play archetypes, not people, as they step across a screenplay of costumed pageantry and pyrotechnic spectacle.
For much of Dune, Villeneuve makes astute use of technology. The elevation of massive ships hovering silently against the shadows recalls the visual restraint of Arrival. However, that restraint goes up in flames when Arakis becomes a battlefield between Atreides and Harkonnen. Unless the moviegoer comes armed with Cliff Notes, some scenes will get lost in the fog of battle.
Wisely, Villeneuve refused to squeeze Herbert’s novel into one movie. Running for two and a half hours, his Dune follows more than half of the first novel (which was the first installment of a trilogy). Even so, a high-end television series might be a better screen forum for literature as dense with ideas as Dune. The film’s screenplay (cowritten by Villeneuve with Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth) is better at namechecking rather than exploring the novel’s key points, including its mysticism and ecological consciousness.
