written by Samuel Hudson
November 19, 2021
Dune Part One is a story that people have tried to adapt time and time again. In 1984, David Lynch attempted to bring Dune to the big screen, but was so ashamed by the film that he disowned it before it ever even premiered in theaters. Reviews from critics were equally mocking. Another attempt to adapt Frank Herbert’s novel was made in 2000, when John Harrison attempted to bring it to the small screen with a television mini-series. It was also poorly received by critics and fans of the book.
After so long without a adaptation to the big screen or the small screen, many believed that Herbert’s story was simply impossible to bring to the medium of film; it was either too dense or too long, and the fantastical futuristic world that Dune inhabits would never be able to find their place in front of an audience of viewers instead of readers.
But Denis Villeneuve changed that.
On October 22, 2021, Denis Villeneueve’s Dune Part One opened both to theaters and HBO Max, drawing $40.1 million in box office revenue from theaters alone, and becoming Villeneueve’s biggest domestic box office opening. It passed $300 million in global box office revenue as of November 2, and is on the fast track to becoming one of the most watched cinematic events of 2021. The Canadian director, succeeding where so many before him have failed, has finally made a movie adaptation worthy of the words Frank Herbert wrote almost sixty years ago.
In our world set far into the future, Villeneuve directs us on the journey of the heir to one of the most powerful Houses in the imperial galaxy, Paul Atreides (played by Timothee Chalamet). Paul is a character defined by his struggle and conflicts within himself: attempting to understand what his place is in a world that seems to demand so much of someone so young. Falling both into the prophecies of the Fremen (the indigenous people on the desert planet of Arakkis, where the movie takes place) and the mysterious all-female religious order of the Bene Gesserit, Paul seems to fit the would-be messiah figure, but is reluctant and even afraid to take up these roles. He questions whether he really is the right person, and, if he is, how he will change if he decides to take up that mantle. If he is the hero that the universe demands, will he be able to recognize himself after all that he’s done?
The visuals audiences experienced in his previous works like Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival are present just as much if not even more so in Dune. Villeneuve is a director that is able to combine the beauty of art house theater and the tone of a blockbuster that is unlike any other science fiction or fantasy films seen to date. The CGI elements of the film not only look real but feel real to the audience, and there is a sense of genuine awe that the movie allows audiences to linger in. They know exactly how they make you feel; their brilliance was on purpose.
Dune is a story that doesn’t feel the need to explain everything in the world to the audiences. There are some elements of the world that are left purposefully in mystery throughout the runtime, like Paul’s ability to use something called “The Voice.” The audience isn’t given a dump of exposition about what The Voice is or where it comes from, but enough context is given organically in the narrative that you understand what it is without really knowing why. In doing so, Villeneuve gives the world of Arakkis room to breathe. Without having to justify its existence, it is simply allowed to serve as the setting for characters in the film to interact with and make decisions in. Pure exposition is dropped in favor of telling the story through the characters, and I think it was the right decision to make, especially for an adaptation of a book like Dune that clocks in at almost 200,000 words.
What brings the film to life beyond the screen is the soundtrack. Scored by the prolific composer Hans Zimmer, the music in the film bridges the gap between the audience and what they see on screen. Working on the team for Dune Part One was a dream come true for Zimmer, who read Herbert’s novel as a child and fell in love with the story. Villeneuve communicated to Zimmer that he wanted the score to be spiritual and to reflect many of the powerful feminine influences in the film, like Lady Jessica and the Bene Gesserit who play key roles in the story. Zimmer ultimately settled on a combination of women’s choir voices, electronic audio manipulation, and various brass instrumentation, but unlike his previous scores in films like Interstellar or Inception, the music of Dune is without an orchestra.
One criticism many have posed at Villeneuve and at Herbert is how closely Paul seems to resemble the trope of the white savior. The Nerds of Color, a community of media critics, describe the trope as a story, “[…] where a caucasian/white character will go into a foreign land and act as a rescuer or messianic figure to the indigenous people there.” The trope entangles many antiquated, incorrect, and borderline offensive racially charged myths, especially concerning the indigenous people that act mainly as helpless objects of the white savior’s kindness and ability to determine their fate. It follows a tradition of paternalistic mistreatment and misunderstanding of many indigenous communities around the world, and one that the US has unfortunately followed before.
However, Villeneuve rejects that reading of Paul in the book and especially so in his film. In an interview with The Nerds of Color, he explains that, “I thought Dune was, the way I was reading it, a critique of that [trope]. It’s not a celebration of a savior. It’s a condemnation and criticism of that idea of a savior. Of someone that will come and tell another operation how to be and what to believe… It’s a criticism. That’s the way I feel it’s relevant and can be seen [contemporarily].” At the very least, the movie appears to be aware of this trope, and seems to want to steer the characters away from that interpretation. Paul’s identity as a possible messiah isn’t depicted as a rightful gift or a duty to enlighten, but is often understood to be quite negative to both Paul himself and others. With the obvious parallels to Middle Eastern peoples and cultures, it would be a severe oversight for Villeneuve not to be aware of the threat of depicting Paul as the Dune universe’s version of the white-mans-burden, and I think he succeeds as much as he can.
The end of Dune Part One seems to come without a grand sense of narrative closure; audiences are acutely aware that this is not the end of Paul’s story. In an interview with members of the press, Villeneuve explained to The Nerds of Color, “The tough task here was to introduce you guys to this world. To the ideas of this world. The codes, the cultures, the different families, the planets […]. Once this is done, it becomes an insane playground. And it will allow me to go berserk […]. Dune Part One is like an appetizer. Dune Part Two is the main meal. […] As much as Dune Part One was my most exciting project ever, Dune Part Two is already getting even more exciting.”
