PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, metaphysical, sociological*
I may revisit these two films someday if I ever get a chance to reread Frank Herbert's original DUNE novel. I have read the novel at least three times, so I'm more than familiar than with the content, but I want to establish that this brief review is based on my memories of the book's incidents.
In short, I found PART ONE dull. But I held off on writing a review because I wanted to know the totality of what director/co-writer Denis Villeneueve made of Herbert's epic novel. But nothing in PART TWO does anything to change my dominant opinion, that Villeneuve takes an epic and turns it into a boring travelogue. As I write this, though, PART TWO has proven just as much a success with the mass audience as PART ONE, and so I have to conclude that many, many viewers are seeing something in the Villeneuve translation that I don't see.
I don't despise this adaptation, but from start to finish I found it no better than any of the others. Indeed, though the 1984 David Lynch version-- which I also have not yet reviewed-- at least is an exciting thrill-ride, and like the book is never dull despite its slower and more meditative sequences.
I don't claim to be an expert in cinematic aesthetics, but I believe that I've honed my own definition of what makes artful visual compositions. In both movies, I found just one scene where I thought Villeneuve realized the visual potential of the novel. When the Atreides family first arrives on Arrakis, there's a lovely contrast between rows and rows of armored guards, the epitome of male power, and a coterie of Bene Gessert, all in filmy veils, the incarnation of feminine influence. Every else in both films is just long tracking shots of deserts in Namibia and Abu Dhabi. And I frankly found the CGI sandworms underwhelming.
Villeneuve is also "meh" on the dynamics of the spacefaring families of the Atreides and the Harkonnens, and of the Empire as a whole (represented by Emperor Christopher Walken). Clearly his passion was to capture Herbert's nomadic Fremen culture, and some of his dramatizations of that culture are appealing, though not compelling throughout the length of either movie. I found the casting variable as well. Timothy Challomee may have been going for playing Paul Atreides as the deeply conflicted moral hero that Villeneuve desired, but he comes off as merely vacillating. Javier Bardem plays the Fremen leader Stilgar as a superstitious believer in messianic prophecies, ardently invested in the idea that Paul is the Fremen's new messiah. That may indeed be the way the book portrays him, but it's a one-note performance in these movies. Most of the other performances are no better, though Josh Brolin brings a rare humanity to his role of Gurney Halleck.
Technically, the best performance is that of Zendaya, an actor whom I had not liked in any previous work. Of course she gets more good scenes because Villeneuve builds her up far more than Herbert did in the book. I strongly suspect that, despite Villeneuve's assertions of fidelity to Herbert, the director wanted Zendaya's Chani to be a more authoritative figure. The actor gives a good multi-level performance, far from any of the tedious "girl bosses" of the MCU, so at least Villenueve avoided that pitfall. Still, the book DUNE does not end with Chani being pissed off because the victorious Paul must make a political marriage to secure his power. Villeneueve clearly elides Herbert's claim that Chani will become Paul's concubine while the marriage will be "in name only," because that sort of arrangement would not fly in the modern political climate. So the two DUNEs in my view are compromised on many levels, though the political compromises are far less significant than the aesthetic shortcomings.
When all's said and done, maybe Villeneuve was just damn lucky that the commercial audience was in the mood for a quasi-LORD OF THE RINGS experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment