If there were doubts that director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s totemic 1965 source material was another series on the white saviour complex (like at least a few op-eds suggested after the first part, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary), he takes good care of it in the sequel. In Dune: Part Two, Villeneuve is less subtle with his choices, being aggressively vocal about the film’s intent, leaving very little room for ambiguity. If anything, Villeneuve’s Dune films are an indictment of the ‘messiah’ narrative, just like Herbert intended.
The end of Dune (2021) saw Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) join the Fremen – the natives of Arrakis – after his father (Oscar Isaac) and army was wiped out by the Harkonnens over the course of a single night. Paul is a ‘special’ boy, or so it appears to most of us. Born in royalty, raised by a mother who is a member of the Bene Gesserit – a secret order of sisterhood making strategic alliances across the galaxy – he has visions of possible futures. Villeneuve paints Paul as someone haunted by the gifts he’s bestowed with, visibly shaken by his dreams of the ‘holy war’ taking place in his name. It’s easy to believe Paul’s moral conundrum because of the actor (Chalamet) selling it. Like Chani (Zendaya) reasons to a fellow fighter about why she’s rooting for Paul – “He’s sincere,” she notes, something one could also extend to Chalamet himself.
When he enters Sietch Tabr – the home of the Fremen – Paul senses murmurs how they view him as Lisan al Gaib: the ‘saviour’ who will turn Arrakis, a desert planet, into a green paradise. Initially reluctant to embrace the prophecy, Paul insists on wanting to learn the Fremen ways, so he can join them in their war against Harkonnens, and thereby avenge his father. The Fremen carry out covert operations, systematically dismantling the Harkonnens’ spice production. During these scenes, Villeneuve uses the idiom of a war film – where cinematographer Grieg Fraser chases the characters as they escape gunfire and explosions, bringing an immediacy to it.
One of the most luminous things about Dune: Part Two, is how Villeneuve controls the rhythm here. Even with a 168-minute runtime, which might invite a few groans, the sequel runs smoothly for the most part. Like in a scene when Paul and Chani glide on sand side by side, like the perfectly synchronised, newly-minted lovers. Despite many elaborate action set-pieces that make it a spectacle, Villeneuve stops time in key scenes, allowing us to fully immerse ourselves into the shoes of the characters, to feel their love, fear, survival instinct and betrayal. It’s a choice by a secure filmmaker, who knows people won’t mind the runtime as long as it remains compelling.
A still from ‘Dune: Part Two’.
For a film meditating on the exploitative ways of organised religion, the ruthless nature of colonial oppression [a scene showing Harkonnens bombing the Fremen Citadel, forcing them to evacuate and head south, looked eerily like Israel bombing Gaza in the last few months] and wasteful ways of a capitalist society, it’s Paul and Chani’s doomed love story that lies at the heart of Villeneuve’s epic film. Chani, while slowly getting charmed by Paul’s earnestness, keeps insisting that he doesn’t have to give in to his messianic visions where he turns into a mass murderer.
It’s a startling conflict, where a girl falls in love with someone who claims will enslave her people, maintaining that one can always mend their fate with their actions. Torn up about how Paul is counselled by his mother (Rebecca Ferguson) about embracing the prophecy, how people like Stiglar (Javier Bardem) blindly inflict their faith on him to ‘lead them to paradise’ – Chani is the only one who sees in Paul a troubled man worth saving. Spaihts and Villeneuve introduce a nice touch, when Chani slaps Paul after he endangers himself by consuming the Water of Life – a poison extracted from a sand worm. It tells us about the ‘equality’ of their dynamic, where she won’t waste a second to bring him down from the pedestal others have built for him.
If Dune: Part Two becomes partially less interesting in parts, it’s because of the high standards Villeneuve and Co. set by themselves. The Harkonnens, who were beautifully eerie and gothic in the first part, are left without too many dimensions here. Rabben (Dave Bautista) runs around like a clueless general as the Fremen categorically attack his spice gathering machines and kill his people. Feyd Rautha (Austin Butler), described as psychotic, goes on to amount to less than satisfactory, despite a gorgeous entry sequence that seems to be inspired by Leni Reifenstahl’s dazzling scale. Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) – who was the main antagonist of the first part – has little to do apart from bark threats or play sadistic games with his nephews. The Emperor (Christopher Walken) and Princess (Florence Pugh) too have not much to do in this dense narrative.
With some of the most daring visuals in a recent film, Villeneuve ensures that even those unfamiliar with the earlier film can keep up; Dune: Part Two stands on its own legs. Its most thrilling when it puts its audience on top of a sand worm, blowing through the sand, with exquisite sound design (by Alexis Feodoroof, Ron Bartlett); it’s superbly simulated to feel like an amusement park ride – not the worst thing a franchise film could be, despite what Martin Scorsese has said. In the film’s closing moments, a coronation ceremony feels like it is painted with an ominous hue instead of feeling triumphant. The ascendancy of the ‘hero’, something we’re conditioned to cheer for as viewers, feels like a blade through the heart.
Dune: Part Two concludes with the beginning of a holy war, just like the prophecy stated, leaving us with a heavy silence about how power invariably corrupts. Rousing chants like ‘Long live the fighters’ and a single person’s ego, is enough to fuel wars for decades, centuries. Nobody wins, or as the reverend mother (Charlotte Rampling) says: “There are no sides.”
