 "Dune movie review: Denis Villeneuve, Timothee Chalamet sci-fi fantasy is high-stakes filmmaking at its finest")
Language: English
The first thing one might notice about Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is how everything seems huge in it. The camera routinely cuts to a wide shot showcasing the gigantic spaceships, the desert of Arrakis that could probably swallow an entire army without leaving a trace, sand worms the size of giant craters on the moon, and tiny specks of humans whose all-pervading interests determine what happens to all of it. However, Villeneuve never lets the overelaborate sets the campy make-up or the (at times) expository dialogue to be a burden on the final film.
An adaptation of Frank Herbert’s once-considered ‘unfilmable’ 1965 novel, Dune takes an ambitious approach towards telling the story over (possibly) two parts.
What is miraculous is also the way director Villeneuve finds a way to marry the big and small, the political and the personal, the spectacle with a film also saying something about our present.
It is brilliant how Villeneuve finds a way to tell an ancient story of ‘the chosen one,’ without sacrificing his own personality.
Paul Atriedes (a disturbingly lean Timothee Chalamet) dreams about Arrakis, a planet known for its endless repository of spice, a vital commodity for interstellar travel in the future. In his dreams, Paul sees himself accompanying a local girl (Zendaya) and leading a rebellion. He is trained by his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), with the hopes that he is the messiah her sisterhood (the Bene Gesserit) has been looking for. Almost on cue, Paul’s father, Leto (Oscar Isaac) is told to preside over Arrakis, instead of their long-time rivals, the Harkonnens, who have witnessed obscene profits because of the spice. Leto tells Paul that the Emperor is not doing anyone favours, and that it could quite possibly be a death trap considering the heat on Arrakis could be just one of the dozen ways to kill someone. [caption id=“attachment_8803661” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]
 Timothée Chalamet in a still from the film | Twitter[/caption] It is intricately plotted, and while there is a lot of ground to cover, Villeneuve tries his level best to make it seem as organic as possible. We do not get information-dump scenes, but we constantly hear people explaining things to another person. It can get slightly annoying, but it also seems unavoidable in a film with more than two dozen recurring characters, where Javier Bardem turns up randomly to spit on a table. Chalamet has played a similar character before in David Michod’s The King (2019), where he gradually transforms into Henry V. As Paul, he is a studious, disciplined and haunted young man. All of 26, Chalamet already exhibits the range of someone in their late 30s (at least), and while he is sincere and devoted through all of it, Dune does not test him as an actor. Ferguson’s Lady Jessica is a revelation, torn between being a mother and being loyal to the Bene Gesserit, she is incredibly sharp when faced with adversity. The likes of Isaac, Josh Brolin (as the Commander of the Atreides army), and Jason Momoa (a spy for the Atreides and Paul’s instructor) are all serviceable for their parts, however, it’s Charlotte Rampling in the role of Mother Mohlam, who spits fire during her brief appearance in the early portions of the film. Also, a word for Stellan Skarsgard as the Baron of Harkonnens, who is delightfully ‘in’ on the campy bits of his role as the antagonist. [caption id=“attachment_10075771” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Oscar Isaac in a still from Dune[/caption] Patrice Vermett’s meticulous production design aided with state-of-the-art VFX (supervised by Paul Lambert) ensures that the audience can practically taste the sand from Arrakis, while watching the characters wade their way through the desert. Greig Fraser’s cinematography, especially in a scene where an important character lays static at a dining table, is a sight to behold. Hans Zimmer’s now-familiar percussion-heavy score includes many middle-eastern influences as the action moves to Arrakis (arguably a stand-in for the Arab world). Like any noteworthy sci-fi piece, the parallels between Dune and the real world are too obvious to miss. But to Villeneuve’s credit, he does not underline them. He also does not rush through the narrative, taking the appropriate amount of pauses, which can sometimes only be a glance or the camera lingering over a character’s face for a second longer. The pace is almost glacial, given the way it goes from assimilating the emotional, political stakes, moving to a set-piece, and ultimately building towards the climax. “This is only the beginning…,” Chani (Zendaya) tells Paul in the final scene, a cliffhanger for a sequel. In an industry where sequels have become an easy cash-grab exercise, something I can say for certain is that I will be in line to buy the tickets for this one. Dune is available in Indian cinemas. Rating: **** Watch the trailer here
Tatsam Mukherjee has been working as a film journalist since 2016. He is based out of Delhi NCR.
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