Title: Dune
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Language: Inglese
Running time: 155'
A little late but, here I am reviewing also Dune (2021) by Denis Villeneuve. I wasn’t able to see the preview at the 78th Venice International Film Festival and had to wait to see it in the theatres like everyone else. I wasn’t actually sure whether to actually go see it. I had heard so many different opinions that I wasn’t convinced I wanted to spend the money of the ticket on it, maybe I could have just waited for it to come out on some streaming platform, but then I finally made up my mind to decide for myself whether I would want a refund or not.
It’s hard to write a brief summary for this movie. We follow Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), a predestined child who doesn’t really know what his fate will be, as he has to travel to the most dangerous planet of the universe to protect the future of his family and his people. This new planet holds the most important resource of the whole universe, the Spice, therefore conflicts of every kind explode to prevent Paul to achieve his goal of basically saving the whole universe without knowing that’s what he’s supposed to do.
Nothing can be said about the production of Dune. The visuals, the aesthetics, direction of photography, script, dialogues, music, everything is close to perfect. We all know that this is Villeneuve’s attempt to revive the cinematographic adaptation of the homonymous book (or series of books) by Frank Herbert (1965) and to make it justice after the disastrous first adaptation made by David Lynch. We can see that a lot of the aesthetics of the movie, like of all fantasy and sci-fi movies of the modern era, take a lot from the ideas that were supposed to be in Jodorowsky’s version of the movie, which wasn’t actually produced and was handed down to Lynch (if you haven’t yet seen the documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune,” what are you waiting for?), and of course the 2021 version is no exception.
The production also relies a lot on the extraordinary cast: aside Chalamet, the current teen idol, we find Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac (seriously, in how many movies at the Venice Film Festival was this guy?), Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Jason Momoa and many, many more. And it does so for a good reason, as the movie is actually the first part of a new saga (hopefully), but the marketing really forgot to tell us all. When the opening title shows that “part 1,” we are left with a bittersweet taste in our mouths, as we had no clue at all that this movie was just going to be a long exposition with a lot of explosions and fights, and obviously a strong cliffhanger ending. With such a cast, visuals and first part, many have started to wonder whether maybe Dune might just be the next Marvel saga, given the length of the first book, other books and other parts of this universe which have been later created. Personally, I have never been passionate about the Marvel universe, and for me Dune might just take that spot.
One really big problem that I noticed in the movie is that so much happens that it seems like nothing happened at all. It’s an intricate political drama à la “Game of Thrones,” with houses, complicate names of both people and places, and a lot of backstory. The movie is long but it seems like it isn’t long enough to really expand on all the topics it should touch. At least, it makes the whole thing quite digestible, even though we are left with a feeling of knowing everything only superficially.
All in all, Dune really was a good watch. Definitely one to be seen on the big screen, as the visuals wouldn’t be as strong if watched anywhere else. I was craving a good movie of this reach, a colossal sci-fi that could keep me hooked to the screen for two-and-a-half hours without making it feel like so long, and Dune was definitely what I needed.
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