One of sci fi’s all-time best-sellers, Frank Herbert’s influential 1965 novel Dune and the five sequels that followed it have turned on generations of young readers to a fantastic world of sand and spice. His heroic saga of prince Paul, scion of the noble House of Atreides, still enjoys cult status today, and its legions of readers will be eager to check out the latest Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures extravaganza, directed by top Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve and starring a stalwart Timothée Chalamet as the young hero. Whether it meets expectations will depend on the viewer’s age and involvement with the book’s deeper themes of religion, the environment and ecology, which are barely present in “Part One” of Dune.
Perhaps the film that made its world premiere in Venice out of competition, preceding a world-wide rollout beginning Sept. 15, is too busy setting the scene and laying out the stakes to feel like a complete work in itself. In fact, it only takes Herbert’s story up to the adventurous desert escape staged by Paul and his mother, the Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), breaking off while there is still a lot more danger to face and powers to activate before any sense of an ending shimmers on the horizon.
Villeneuve’s is the third attempt to make a feature film from the novel. The first was by visionary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky in the Seventies; the ten-hour project was canceled after three years. An adaptation directed by David Lynch and produced by Dino and Raffaella De Laurentiis starring Kyle MacLachlan was released in 1984 to general dismay and cries of “space camp”.
What we get in this first installment is lots of action, warfare, swordplay and alien monsters (namely, the voracious, train-sized sandworms) in a fast-paced tale of a royal household changing planets. Herbert’s big themes are barely broached. Playfulness is taboo: absent is any sign of endearingly neurotic robots; no jokes or wisecracks characterize the space denizens and make them human. Here the mood is somber and dangerous, less Star Wars and more Game of Thrones (which also seems to inspire Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan’s chic medieval-themed costume design and Patrice Vermette’s stylized concrete great halls and aircraft hangars).
The story begins in the year 10,191 at a critical turning point in the history of the desert-cloaked planet of Arrakis. Under the cruel yoke of the House of Harkonnen, appointed by the Emperor to govern, the native Fremens labor to harvest the planet’s great resource, spice, which is apparently mixed into the sand. Spice is not only a source of youth and health, it’s the fuel that makes spaceships run and interstellar travel possible. Think crude oil that’s healthy to consume.
The oil comparison must have occurred to Villeneuve and his co-screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth, too, because it’s hard to contemplate Arrakis’s treacherous but valuable deserts without flashing on our own Middle East and all the wars that have been fought over oil rights. The oppressed, dark-skinned Fremens who know the desert ways and live underground in harmony with nature provide a striking contrast to their aggressive alien masters in their armored spacesuits, exporting their wealth and leaving nothing in return.
Then, for no obvious reason, the Empire sends an envoy to the royal House of Atreides with a message for Duke Leto (a duty-bound Oscar Isaac in a salt-and-pepper beard) that he is to take over running Arrakis; the Hakonnens are to withdraw. The Duke smells a trap but cannot refuse, and off the royal household goes with their army and belongings, leaving a comfy Earth-like environment for the dusty hell of the spice planet.
Throughout these early scenes, Chalamet’s prince Paul grows from sleepy adolescent into a role of responsibility to his father and mother. He is the heir apparent, son of the Duke’s concubine Jessica, but still in training. He learns swordplay from the ultra-cool Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) and family loyalist Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), but his real education comes from his mother, an acolyte of the mysterious female order of Bene Gesserit, whose Mother Superior puts Paul through a ferocious test of pain. He senses a great destiny awaits him, and he already has some of his mother’s power to command others to do her bidding (quite a handy super-power when they’re in a bind), but he’s not there yet. The question in everyone’s mind is whether Paul is the Chosen One who has been prophesied to come, a messiah who will found a new religion and liberate the Fremens. This remains a vague thread that runs through Dune Part One, though signs suggest it will become more dominant if and when the series continues.
Director of photography Greig Fraser literally stirs up a sandstorm in scene after scene of swirling warfare, after a series of betrayals puts the Atreides forces on the defensive. Yet the desert hues are never boring or hard to decipher, even when giant sandworms tunnel through the sands in search of victims to engulf. Perhaps it’s a plus that there isn’t a lot of fancy tech to visually digest. The futuristic aircraft sometimes looks as heavy as the massive gray architecture, though there is a quaint insect look to the military helicopters with dragonfly wings.
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Screenplay: Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem, Dave Bautista, Sharon Duncan Brewster, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen, David Dastmalchian, Jason Momoa
Producers: Mary Parent, Denis Villeneuve, Cale Boyter, Joe Caracciolo, Jr.
Executive producers: Tanya Lapointe, Joshua Grode, Herbert W. Gains, Jon Spaihts, Thomas Tull, Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt, Kim Herbert.
Cinematography: Greig Fraser
Production design: Patrice Vermette
Costume design: Jacqueline West, Bob Morgan
Editing: Joe Walker
Music: Hans Zimmer
Sound: Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hempill, Ron Bartlett
Production companies: Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures
Venue: Venice Film Festival (out of competition)
In English
155 minutes