Dune review - A Beginning is a very Delicate Time
“A beginning is a very delicate time.”
The issue with adapting Dune as a feature film is not so much the talent involved but rather the method by which you must provide so much exposition. In the mid-1970s, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt involved a screenplay the size of a phone book and a supposed 14 hour running time, which would have tested even the most ardent Dune fans. His own son was to play lead character Paul Atreides, and the cast would have included Orson Welles as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and Salvador Dali as Emperor Shaddam IV. The mind boggles at what could have been.
On opposite side of the spectrum, Lynch's 1984 attempt runs a comparatively brisk 137 minutes and manages to condense Frank Herbert’s bestselling novel into a choppy experience that remains largely incomprehensible for anyone unfamiliar with the source material. Lynch himself wanted the film to be closer to three hours, but commercial requirements burdened him to reduce the running time and inevitably render a story that involves significant exposition into a strange, bizarre, and visually ugly experience, but not in a good, Lynchian way.
It's no surprise then that [Denis Villeneuve's] version of Dune is a visually entralling experience.
For Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation, the answer to the Dune puzzle is somewhere in the middle. Bravely he has split the movie into two parts, the second which still has to be produced (it was recently green-lit by Warner Bros). The title card of Dune (2021) even says ‘Dune: Part 1,’ a title the marketing for the movie has stayed clear of. With Villeneuve fresh from the epic Blade Runner 2049, which itself was somewhat a thankless and impossible task, he is clearly fearless when it comes to meeting the high expectations of fervent fan-bases. It’s no surprise then that his version of Dune is a visually enthralling experience. It also manages to only slightly reduce the narrative richness contained in the novel and provide an experience that will please almost everyone, as long as you can accept that the film is incomplete.
Foregoing the voice over narration that Lynch relied on, we are treated to a very balanced version of Dune that is keen to avoid overt explanation of all the mythology involved but yet provides enough cues via dialogue and visuals to explain just the right amount to keep the narrative comprehensible.
This is space opera territory, but thankfully it’s a much more grounded and hard-sci-fi interpretation compared to the Star Wars universe it inspired. Part of the fun of Dune is that while it is a straightforward plot of good verses evil, there is so much religious and political allegory here to give it’s mythology some much needed solemn weight.
The good people (House Atreides) are typical archetypes of good: honourable, moral people in a close family unit. The bad people (House Harkonnen) are predictably the opposite. Their figurehead Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) is more of a vessel of evil than a real character, so fat he can’t walk without the support of anti-gravity jets to float him through the air. It’s all so, well, unsubtle, and yet when the world of Dune itself is depicted here is such arresting imagery and the characters motivations are so clear, its easy to become swept away in the storm. You won’t find much humour here, but then again some of the best epics never needed it.
So much of the first half of Dune’s story is about loss. One of the unfortunate realities is that we don’t have much screen time to spend with characters we yearn to know more about. Before long, the family structure of House Atreidies under threat and young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) is left with his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) to pursue his spiritual purpose in the hot desert.
Religious allegory abounds in the character of Paul, and he’s a hard character to play – he’s a cold, distant form of the Chosen One, a Jesus figure who may or may not save the world from evil. Yet Chalamet (just like MacLachlan before him) adds enough sensitively here to Paul to keep him largely relatable as a young boy learning his place in the world. I suspect Part 2 will not be as easy to perform, as once Paul gets closer to fulfilling his destiny, he becomes less and less relatable to us mere mortals. The Matrix sequels had this exact problem with Neo, since the closer he gets to divinity, the less you care about him.
But it's very difficult to truly review or truly love a movie that isn't finished.
Which brings me to the fact that the film is genuinely incomplete. Its a brave choice to end the movie right at the point when a resolution seems within reach, but it’s very difficult to truly review or truly love a movie that isn’t finished. I think the film covers maybe 70% of the book, which is also frustrating, for I find myself wondering if there’s even another feature film worth of material left here to make a Part Two as compelling as Part One. I also have to admit that Part One covers the most compelling part of Herbert’s sometimes clunky story. I am a little fearful that what remains will struggle to create the kind of narrative energy that is present here.
Yet one can’t underestimate the talent of Denis Villeneuve. Time and again he proves himself incapable of failing with his creative risks. He instincts offer compelling, mature entertainment at a scale that only Christopher Nolan can claim access to. Whilst we are void of so little invention and wonder in science fiction, what’s remarkable about this version of Dune is that after reading Herbert’s book and watching Lynch’s version, Villeneuve still manages to instil wonder and discovery in story that should have all but burnt its bridges.
