Dune (2021)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence - a commodity capable of unlocking humanity's greatest potential - only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
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After David Lean, whose Lawrence of Arabia served as inspiration for Herbert’s desert-set sci-fi saga, passed, the project fell into the hands of Chilean mystic Alejandro Jodorowsky, who envisioned it as his Remembrance of Things Past—a 10-hour epic featuring Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, and Salvador Dali, with music by Pink Floyd.
Some comparisons can be made to the film Lawrence of Arabia from the desert landscape to the theme of finding your identity by being in contact with other cultures.
And the cinematic style is “Lawrence of Arabia” meets “Triumph of the Will” meets the most visionary cologne commercial that Ridley Scott never made.
Pulling from Frank Herbert’s landmark science fiction novel—or about half of it, anyway—Villeneuve reaches for an epic on the scale of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings while also not so subtly evoking imagery from the ultimate desert odyssey, Lawrence of Arabia .
“Dune,” starring Timothee Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson, is the second major adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel.
To that end, and to bring it back to “Star Wars,” Fraser also shot “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” and much of the visual appearance of “Dune,” for shorthand anyhow, could be described as a less colorful, more sinister, less inviting version of Gareth Edwards’ Jedha city milieu (also modeled after Middle Eastern culture).
Cinematographer Greig Fraser — who previously delivered the mind-blowing planet-explosion shots in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — keeps the camerawork largely static and stately, with lingering wide shots that let you drink in all the detail of the gorgeous sets, and bask in the vistas of Villeneuve’s galactic visions.
In this Roger Deakins-less venture – Greig Fraser ( Zero Dark Thirty , Rogue One ) is on cinematography duty here – colour is as rarely seen as the mighty worms that plague Arrakis, the desert world on which Herbert's story takes place.
But more than any one Nolan film in particular, Dune feels most reminiscent of The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring .
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Craftsmen like Denis Villeneuve are busy chiselling out epic stories in recent years, but even with the technology advances in today’s day and age, or the proficiency of the French Canadian director, that wide-eyed, endlessly curious, consciously silly, and consistently heartfelt approach to storytelling makes Star Wars so much more endearing than his Dune (2021-24) film series.
Villeneuve is in love with the scale of these subterranean beasties, each of which is half as long as the R.M.S. Titanic, and he frames them with such palpable awe that you almost expect the “Jurassic Park” theme to play every time they rear their butthole heads.
It’s kindred spirits with his 2009 Watchmen in its utter fealty to the text, an impressive piece of mimicry unbothered by its source’s troubling ideas, the sense of subversion bubbling below.
En la línea solipsista del Christopher Nolan de Dunkerque (2017) o del Zack Snyder de Watchmen (2009), pero cada uno, claro, fiel a su estilo único e intransferible.
Notably, many of its images and ideas have instead disseminated into everything from Star Wars to Studio Ghibli’s Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind .
They’re soon reduced to sound and earthquakes, signifying nothing but your growing desire to be watching “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” instead.
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And the cinematic style is “Lawrence of Arabia” meets “Triumph of the Will” meets the most visionary cologne commercial that Ridley Scott never made.
Warner Bros agreed to a two-part adaptation, like it did with Stephen King's It , but it's up to the first part to ensure that Villeneuve gets to return to complete his vision.