"Dune" review — Villeneuve's triumphant adaptation of the seminal novel
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.”
This film was featured in my Best Films of 2021 list.
In the fifty-six years since its original publication, there have been many attempts to bring Frank Herbert’s seminal novel Dune to the screen. Avant-garde Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky attempted to make an adaptation of the film in the 1970s before he had to abandon the project. Most famously, there is David Lynch’s 1984 version, Lynch himself famously disowned, saying “I probably shouldn't have done that picture.” There was also the poorly-received miniseries adaptation from the early 2000s, but most seem to have forgotten that. The novel had gained a reputation of being an ‘unfilmable’ literary work.
The original book, written by Frank Herbert, was published in 1965. Influenced by work like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and influencing later work like Star Wars, Dune is a landmark in the genre of science-fiction. The beloved novel is known for its rich world-building, complex politics, and lengthy narrative. It’s steeped with lore, requiring an extensive glossary at the back of the novel to explain the core concepts and fictional words that appear within the narrative. The novel won the Hugo Award, the inaugural Nebula Award, and is frequently found in lists of the best science-fiction novels ever written. It’s a monumental task to adapt, which, to my delight, director and co-writer Denis Villeneuve masterfully completes.
Many thousand years into the future, humanity has returned to a semi-feudal existence with its immense, space-faring empire controlled by the Great Houses and the Emperor in control of them all. The empire relies on the harvesting of the spice, a powerful semi-hallucinogen, as the source of its ability to travel through space in a world where “thinking computers” are illegal and extinct. Spice is found on one planet in the known universe: Arrakis, also known as Dune. The Great Houses, the Spacing Guild, the Emperor, and the Bene Gesserit, a female-led religious order vie for power over Arrakis because, to quote Lynch’s film, “he who controls the spice controls the universe.”
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| Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica. © Warner Bros. 2021. Thanks to @dune_shots on Twitter. |
The French-Canadian filmmaker went into production on the latest Dune adaptation while on one of the hottest contemporary streaks in Hollywood. The filmmaker has been directing feature films since 1989 but his career really starts when he broke into the mainstream with the masterful Incendies (2010). He followed up his success with a pair of thrillers in 2013, Prisoners and Enemy. He went on to direct the action-thriller Sicario (2015), the first-contact drama Arrival (2016), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Along the way, Villeneuve has proven his talent by delivering films with stylish visuals, complicated narratives, unique atmospheres and aesthetics, heavy themes, and powerful performances. Villeneuve was the filmmaker best suited to the task and he certainly delivers.
Adapting only the first half of the novel, Villeneuve’s Dune begins on the lush, forested planet Caladan, the homeworld of the noble House Atreides. The young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), finds himself at the crossroads of the conflicting influences in his life. He is torn between his desires for freedom and his commitment to his family. He is torn between his training with the free-spirited Duncan Idaho (Jason Mamoa) and the hard-as-nails Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin).
Most importantly, he is torn between his father, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac), and his mother, Lady Jessica of the Bene Gesserit (Rebecca Ferguson). As the sole heir of the family name, he has a duty to continue on the legacy of all of those who came before him and to preserve the good name of Atreides. On the other hand, Paul possesses the unique abilities of the Bene Gesserit taught to him by his mother that he does not yet fully understand.
“You have more than one birthright, boy,” the Reverend Mother Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) reminds Paul.
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| The Bene Gesserit arrive on Caladan. © Warner Bros. 2021. Thanks to @dune_shots on Twitter. |
Chalamet, leading an impossibly large cast, is fantastic here. One of the brightest young stars in the industry, Chalamet proves that he is more than confident with any cinematic challenge, indie drama or blockbuster feature. The rest of Dune’s star-studded cast brings they’re all to the strange, inhuman characters that populate this distant future. Stellan Skarsgård is menacing and imposing as the villainous Baron Harkonnen. Brief appearances by Rampling, Javier Bardem, and Zendaya, although short, leave wonderful impressions on the viewer. The aforementioned Isaac and Ferguson are wonderful as well as Chalamet’s co-leads. The highlight of the cast is Jason Mamoa who radiates passion and energy and continues to demonstrate how worthy he is of being an action star.
Paul’s life becomes more complicated when House Atreides is asked by the Emperor to take control of mining operations on Dune which had been previously occupied by the Atreides’ ancient rivals, the vicious House Harkonnen. As the family prepares to move. Paul says a last goodbye to the intricately designed royal palace and the beautiful landscapes of Caladan. Dune takes a note from the playbook of the original Star Wars films as it grounds its alien landscapes in real-life locations. Norway’s Stad peninsula stands in for Caladan and the Wadi Rum valley in Jordan — featured in other sci-fi movies like The Martian (2015) and Rise of Skywalker (2019) — stands in for Arrakis. The use of practical locations grounds the strange world of the film in gorgeous photography of real places. While many contemporary blockbusters shoot even the most basic of sequences in front of a green screen, Villeneuve actively resists visual effects when not necessary.
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| A Harkonen ship on Arrakis. © Warner Bros. 2021. Thanks to @dune_shots on Twitter. |
This dedication to realness is found throughout Dune and is a sensibility Villeneuve carries over from Arrival and Blade Runner. The costumes are real. The extravagant interior sets were real. The production design is aggressive and bewilderingly large-scale. The film offers up a brutalist vision of the future with its harsh lines, dim colours, and militaristic costumes. Many of the smaller ships and vehicles had real-life, to-scale (but unfortunately non-functional) counterparts. Denis Villeneuve has often expressed his hatred of green screens in the past and has talked at length about how they cause him to be depressed. There is so much quality in the film’s practical elements. The digital effects that the film does use are seamlessly integrated with the film’s practical elements because so much more effort can be placed upon them. Despite a budget of $165 million (which is relatively small for a blockbuster), Dune ends up being one of the best-looking blockbusters in recent memory and runs rings around all of its competition this year.
Like the book, the film is slowly-paced as Villeneuve lets the audience live and breathe in the world of the film. He takes his time lingering on shots of complex building interiors or wondrous landscapes. The film resists the urge to dump all of its extensive exposition onto the viewer and lets it come up naturally throughout the movie. The film’s brief opening monologue is only a few minutes long and captures the very basics of the plight of the Fremen, Arrakis’ indigenous population. It’s very accurate to how Herbert wrote his novel. Herbert’s love of nature and complex fictional ecology is replaced by a loving montage of a muad’dib, the Fremen name of the desert mouse, trying to survive the heat. However, this leads to the film’s most divisive element: its ending.
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| A Guild heighliner above Caladan. © Warner Bros. 2021. Thanks to @dune_shots on Twitter. |
The one thing that Lynch’s film proved is that Dune is far too expansive of a story to fit cleanly into a two-and-a-half-hour movie. Lynch’s film shoves exposition and characters at the audience at a breakneck speed. Villeneuve takes a gamble and paces his film more accurately to the pace of the book. As I mentioned earlier, Dune, title Dune: Part One on-screen, only adapts the first half of the original book. The film does, for better or worse, feel like only half of a story and may not offer the conclusion that many viewers might want.
“This is only the beginning,” says Zendaya’s Chani, a member of the Fremen, at the end of the film.
I am deeply in love with the first chapter in Villeneuve’s Dune saga. From the fantastic lead performances to the visually stunning aesthetics and commitment to practicality, the film is more than worthy of the legacy of Herbert’s novel. Dune is overwhelmingly large in scale and utterly breathtaking. It is a truly unique experience that dares to raise the bar of blockbuster entertainment from the aggressively digital sludge that clogs the genre. I cannot recommend it enough.
Villeneuve can’t be stopped can he?
Score: 4.5
Dune is now playing in theatres.
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