Director: Denis Villeneuve
Based on: Dune, by Frank Herbert
Visually impressive as always with Denis, but
perhaps inevitably flounders on the structural reefs set up by the original
source material. Denis aims to make the warnings of Paul’s story more explicit—that
charismatic leaders are dangerous, for the more followers they have, the more
their mistakes get amplified—but in so doing renders the central relationship
of the story nonsensical.
Dune is a fucken weird book, you know. I’m
not even talking about the flying bird helicopters and desert people orgies. Mutated
fish people who fly FTL ships with the power of drugs. Subliminal messaging in
human voices becoming a form of mind control. Genetic, ancestral memories
giving you the ability to predict the future. Expecting a whoah there far-out psychedelic
frenzy of a book to perfectly map onto social issues 60 years later is just…nuts.
So no, I don’t think it’s especially about “colonialism”
or “oppression” or a “white savior” story. It’s waaay more fucked up than that.
But Denis wants us to see that Paul is not a Good Guy and to do that he plays
up the artificial nature of his messiah-dom, and sets his lover/wife Chani as
the voice of reason in opposition to him. Why she remains attracted to him then
is baffling (she’s not just a little concerned about him, mind you, but dead
set on seeing him as an existential threat to her entire people). But eh. If
you hire Zendaya and FloPu you gotta give them something to do.
Overall, it was still good. I liked the idea Paul
is kind of trapped into becoming the messiah and the more he fights against it
the more events conspire to force him down the same road. And the fremen going
full fanatical jihad was suitably scary. Javier Bardem meanwhile, is reduced to
going full Life of Brian mode in heralding a reluctant Paul as the messiah,
telling his buddies “only the mahdi would say he isn’t the mahdi”—a line lifted
almost straight from Monty Python.
Speaking of doing much with little material, a big
shout out to the Captain of the Emperor's guard though, on the screen for less
than 30 seconds but so memorable, grizzled old dude looks like he's seen some
shit, could wrestle a bear and win, poses for the camera, squints with steely
determination for a sec, charges into a dust storm and promptly gets
obliterated. True hero.
To liven up your experience, I’d recommend sneaking
in a bottle of tequila and doing shots every time the Harkonnens encounter a
minor obstacle and, in a fit of reasonableness, immediately murder the fuck out
of one of their own dudes. Denis’ portrayal of evil is a step up from the book’s
pedo homosexuals, but not exactly deep.
I will, of course, be there to see the promised
third movie on opening night.
