Denis Villeneuve's Desert Power
Denis Villeneuve's Desert Power
Why Dune and Dune: Part Two are so spectacularly satisfying.
It’s been over two weeks since I saw Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, and given that it was my number one most anticipated film for 2023 (before it got pushed back into 2024 due to strikes) I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t share some thoughts, scrappy as they’ll no doubt be.
The sand has firmly settled after an initial gush of praise geysering out of seemingly every film circle - with the notable exception of IndieWire’s David Ehrlich who thought the film was “agonizing to watch”1. Having now seen and properly digested the film myself, I can only think of two explanations for this kind of brazenly excessive reaction. Either IndieWire is desperately baiting for clicks or Mr. Ehrlich’s movie-brain broke in some kind of tragic and unfortunate accident.
Dune: Part Two is obviously the furthest thing from ‘agonizing’ - unless your idea of agony is getting immersed in and swallowed up as if by one of the film’s many sandworms in the embrace of a master at work. With both Dune installments in his filmography now, Villeneuve has accessed the wing of the penthouse that’s only been occupied by, in recent history, two other guys. One of whom just won an Oscar.
If we think of directing multi-million dollar action-adventure blockbusters like boxing, the only two guys in Villeneuve’s weight class right now are George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road) and, naturally, Christopher Nolan. If we’re talking mainstream pop culture, Dune and Dune Part Two are to sci-fi what The Dark Knight trilogy is to comic book movies and Fury Road is to action.
So what’s in the sauce? What is it about Villeneuve’s 2020s Dune movies that makes David Lynch’s 1984 Dune movie look like the campiest dumpster fire ever ignited by an otherwise genial filmmaker in all of cinema’s 129-year-old history?
All of Villeneuve’s roads led to Dune.
With films like Incendies (2010) and Prisoners (2013) he conquered twisted, intimate dark material. With Sicario (2015), he added a layer of choreographed thrilling action to the mix, directing one of the most absorbing, mood-dependent crime films of the century. Utilising score (courtesy of the late great Jóhann Jóhannsson) and cinematography (courtesy of legendary Roger Deakins) to brilliant effect.
With Arrival (2016) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017) he entered the realm of sci-fi, carving out a piece of that expansive genre that can only be his own and no one else’s. On top of the intimacy of dark twisted material, harmoniously choreographed action set pieces, and the palpable atmosphere of dread that makes everything so much more compelling, he added a cerebral element. Big, existential questions anchored to a visual language that screams epic without ever needing to be the centre of attention.
That centre is reserved for story. And the connective tissue of that story is made up of moments that can only be conjured up by cinema - the harmony of image and sound, the rhythm and pace of the editing, the omnipotent eye of the camera lens, the invisible narrative blocks building up to moments of catharsis and euphoria you are simply unable to experience anywhere else except in the darkened room of a theatre.
Sound you can see and images you can hear.
The kind of moments that turn audiences into acolytes, films into scriptures and filmmakers into Gods.
The cinematic-operatic sci-fi spectacle that is Dune and Dune: Part Two.
I think of Dune and Dune: Part Two as one film, split into two parts. The months and years between the two theatrical releases were just one, very, very long, intermission. Villeneuve adapted Frank Herbert’s first Dune book into a five-hour space opera for the screen (compare that to Lynch’s 1984 version which squeezed the identical story into less than 2 hours2) and with it, achieved cinematic godhood.
All of the ingredients I’ve gone over above, from Incendies (2010) to Blade Runner 2049 (2017), are baked into the 5-hour Dune saga and appropriately blown up to take full advantage of the audio-visual grandeur of the IMAX screen.
The key reason why Villeneuve’s version of Dune is so spectacularly satisfying, I think, is nested in its unique need to be experienced on the biggest, loudest screen possible. This need doesn’t mostly stem from its impressive visual effects or epic set pieces (all of which are, of course, present) as is customary with sci-fi action-adventures like Star Wars and the prevalent mythologies of superhero and monster films. Dune is above all of that materialistic and formulaic pageantry.
The need for the big screen stems mostly from the films’ profound capacity to light up the right signals in the amygdala and evoke an emotionally-charged visceral reaction through images and sounds. They achieve a rare feat in this particular sandbox of big-budget mainstream blockbuster: a deeply immersive experience that pulls the audience in through, primarily, emotion and empathy. Similar to Interstellar and Mad Max: Fury Road.
Villeneuve has taken expert care in crafting moments that build up to this rare and beautiful kind of emotive bliss.
Behind the camera, Villeneuve collaborated with an elite trio in the three departments essential to bringing stories that can only live on the big screen to life - Hans Zimmer for score, Joe Walker for editing and Greig Fraser for cinematography.
In front of the camera, the performances in Part Two, as an ensemble, are all beholden to this singular mission. Zendaya and Javier Bardem are the stand out examples. As Paul’s (Timothee Chalamet) closest Fremen allies, Chani and Stilgar have much bigger roles in this second half of the story and the scenes where they act with their eyes and facial expressions alone hit hardest.
When Villeneuve said that he “hates dialogue”3, perhaps he was being too dismissive and deserved the heat that came to him, but when he elaborated in a subsequent interview, it makes way more sense. For him, dialogue is a last resort and what he really hates is overwritten dialogue. He goes on to say:
At its birth, there was no dialogue in cinema — there was a full exploration of the power of the images to tell the story. [Filmmakers] were using the power of the cinematic language to express stories; the direction and the drama unfolded [through] images.4
The cliche of directors talking about ‘the language of cinema’ is usually reserved for pretentious arthouse circles. But the reason both Dune parts are so spectacular and memorable is precisely because they have a director with these arthouse sensibilities. You won’t be shocked to learn that the film’s weakest link is its dialogue, but somewhere along the way it stops being an issue.
This is why the scene of Paul riding the sandworm for the first time is, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, one of the most spectacular action scenes of the century. It’s layered with so much emotionally-charged dynamite you feel as if you’re about to explode. Jessica’s (Rebecca Ferguson) transformation into a Reverend Mother, Feyd-Rautha’s (Austin Butler) gladiatorial introduction, Paul’s call to war, and many other moments evoke similar types of visceral, dig-your-fingernails-into-your-seat, reactions.
It’s super powerful stuff.
Nevermind that the film - thanks to the brilliance of its source material and Frank Herbert’s genius - also packs Big Ideas about mixing religion and politics, blindly following power-drunk prophets, the nature of war, the clash of cultures and more.
Ultimately, Dune and Dune Part Two prove that multi-million-budget blockbusters and cinematic intelligence aren’t mutually exclusive. For every churned out, half-assed and formulaic MCU and Star Wars movie or TV show, there’s a Dune, or a Mad Max film, or whatever Nolan decides to do next.
As I let the sands of Dune settle, and get more and more excited for the sand to rise in Furiosa, I find myself feeling grateful for these old-school, big-screen artists and wielders of desert power.5
I refuse to give that review any more clicks, backlinks be damned. Google it if you really must.
I saw Lynch’s version after I came back from my Dune: Part Two screening. The film is so disastrously outdated and ludacris compared to the newer version it was like watching shopping trolleys race in a Walmart car park after coming back from the Monaco Grand Prix.
The audio snippets in this article are taken from Hans Zimmer’s “Resurrection” for Dune: Part Two.