I watched a youtube video put out a couple weeks ago by TIFF where Denis Villeneuve talks about the legacy of Lawrence of Arabia. It’s also a means for him to promote his new movie Dune, another desert-based hero’s journey, by outlining how David Leans’ seminal masterpiece influenced his work and choices. He notes the “very impressive balance between the scope, the epicness, and the intimacy of the journey of the main character.” That is indeed arguably the crux of what made Lawrence so great and it is clearly what Villeneuve is aiming for with Dune, now the third adaption of a text deemed unadaptable for its’ denseness and narrative complexity. His film is a sweeping, grandiose spectacle of scale and ambition, a saga of imperialism in a far off future in space, of rival aristocratic feudal powers competing for a valuable resource, of an indigenous population caught in the middle, and also of magical super powers and a centuries-old prophecy. And it is a decent enough character journey.
Dune is of course a behemoth of science-fiction, Frank Herbert’s original 1965 novel serving to influence a considerable chunk of popular genre media that has come afterwards, from Star Wars to Game of Thrones and most everything in between. And it’s not hard to see why: like Lord of the Rings, it’s got a simple but very rich story, with a lot of compelling and thoughtful themes and vast world-building that serves to heighten those themes. It proved too much for Alejandro Jodorosky, who attempted to make a big experimental film out of it in the 1970s. It was also too much for David Lynch, who was tasked with the project afterwards, saw it to completion and subsequent butchering by the studio. I like the 1984 Dune, but it’s not ideal by any stretch, whittling down a lot of Herbert’s story and leaving almost no room for character development or thematic exploration. A low-budget miniseries followed in the early 2000s before Villeneuve was seen fit to revitalize this formidable title.
Dune is the story of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), heir to the noble House Atreides, that has just been awarded by their Emperor the fiefdom of the planet Arrakis -a harsh desert world that is the known galaxy’s one source of a mystical spice which is the most valuable resource in the universe. Through his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), Paul has a particular psychic power too, that he must learn to hone as he adapts to this new environment, while political intrigue and conspiracy endanger what power the Atreides’ have in this dangerous new world.
And it’s a handily realized world, Villeneuve wielding the dense mythology with a light touch as he marvels at the breathtaking desert vistas, the severe, almost fascist architecture of the city of Arrakeen, and the enormity of his fierce desert sandworms, the native species of Arrakis and mascot of the Dune series. We’re privy to less of the larger machinations at work, certainly compared to Lynch’s film, but the universe feels no less vast and enticing. Villeneuve is also notably upfront with what the story is really about: the very first sequence accounts the withdrawal of the House Harkonnen, the Atreides’ predecessor and direct enemy, from the perspective of the indigenous Fremen, who here and later in the film seem to consider the Atreides’ inheriting of the planet as a distinction without a difference. The Atreides are kinder, more conciliatory, and no doubt less cruel, but they are still there to harvest a resource at the expense of the land and its’ people. The effects of imperialism are keenly felt too, in the acknowledged risk of war with the Harkonnens, the political aims each party has towards the planet, even the religious interest in who controls the spice, all as Paul grows more in touch with the planet, more fascinated by the Fremen, whom his father Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) is trying to court for alliance.
The relationship between the House and the Fremen is one that Villeneuve has a particular interest in, and he’s aware the story is a white saviour narrative –building Paul’s admiration for and fascination with the culture and customs of these natives, yet keeping him at a distance where he can understand his role in the structure that subdues them. “The idea that Lawrence would fall in love with another culture and try to help this culture in order to fight against colonialism; and realize at the end that he himself will be an instrument of this colonialism is something that has a strong link with Paul Atreides’ journey in Dune.” This by and large remains to be seen, given Paul doesn’t interact much with the Fremen (the film is in fact “Part One” of a two-part adaptation), but the ground is being laid for Paul to be a more atypical variant of a classic hero.
Still, the Fremen remain a difficult piece of this movie, a collective not glimpsed much outside of the prologue and the recurring prescient dreams of Paul -utilized for commentary when needed for it but otherwise shifted to the background. They’re coded as vaguely Bedouin but are ethnically diverse save for an absence of white people. What aspects of their culture and religion we see teeter on the brink of quasi-exoticism, especially in that veneration they reserve for a white figurehead.
And as that figurehead, Timothée Chalamet is decently alien, distant and dispassionate through great change and heavy expectation. But his performance does feel limited by the characters’ largely internalized and subdued personality, little of the weight on his shoulders coming from multiple authorities is translated. The characterization needed more humanity to fully connect with, though I do feel Chalamet was the right choice as he proves in other sectors. Much like Lynch’s Dune, the casting is pretty impressive, from Ferguson and Isaac to Josh Brolin as weapons master Gurney, Charlotte Rampling as the Reverend Mother and Stellan Skarsgård as the frightful villain Baron Harkonnen. Also in the cast are Javier Bardem, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen, Dave Bautista, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, David Dastmalchian, and with screen-time less than was advertised, Zendaya. They all fit their parts well and each character is compelling on some level, but the performances don’t typically rise above them, with perhaps the exception of Jason Momoa as an elite soldier and mentor to Paul, amusingly called Duncan Idaho.
But Villeneuve is keyed into the silly, injecting some humour that was entirely absent in the earlier film (as intended anyway). And watching the film is very much watching his excitement at getting to make this film. As much as you get the sense of which scenes are the most critical, he directs them with gravity, and an attention to each moving part that makes them feel so important, so cinematic. I completely agree with his view that this is a film to be experienced on the big screen, it’s simply the format best suited for his vision of the art.
The story being split however does affect things overall -Dune is indeed half a movie, a trend that has been strangely prominent this year. And much like other adaptations that break up the source material, I’m not sure it picks the right spot to end on, going on about a half hour after what’s technically the movie’s climax, purely so it can get Paul to a certain point in his character journey for a follow-up to pick up on. It makes more sense in the knowledge that Villeneuve didn’t film both parts at once as would have been the preferable option, and it’s less awkward at least in its’ end point than A Quiet Place Part II or Halloween Kills, but it is also not wholly cohesive ultimately, and if a part two wasn’t happening (as could have been the case) it would have been quite embarrassing.
Still, while Dune falls short of some expectations, both for the promise in the material and Villeneuve’s own pedigree (granted, topping Blade Runner 2049 is no easy task), it does manage to more than sufficiently tell its’ story and introduce its’ world -which it does with visual splendour, and plenty of character. There are a lot of things that Villeneuve does with Dune that are genuinely exciting -things that blockbusters aren’t typically interested in doing anymore. And I can’t wait to see him continue on that path in the next film. It’s not Lawrence of Arabia, but it’ much closer than I thought a 2021 movie could ever get.
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