"The best movie I have ever seen or ever will see." ~~my son, Saturday night
Audacious, because he made a nearly 5½-hour two-part movie. Part 1 did not feel long, and with Part 2, he felt no need to rush towards the end. Paul and Jessica's assimilation into the Fremen is shown at a leisurely pace, with occasional skirmishes with the spice farmers to keep the energy levels up. I suspect a director less bold would not dare to make us watch so much.
I try not to take for granted that all the scenes of sand worms, of the dragonfly-like flying machines, the mining equipment raking the sand - none of it exists. All done in computers. Making this movie, all in broad daylight, with sand dunes, sand clouds, sand everywhere, all in the computer. The turbulence from the flying machines blurring our view of mining equipment in the distance, all faked. A new pinnacle of achievement. Even the blue eyes of the Fremen are subtle enough to be present without distracting.
As a lover of science fiction books and movies, I have always longed for a movie with scenes on an alien world that look like they take place under an alien sun. During an extended gladiator sequence on the Harkonnen's homeworld, everything we see is shown in high-contrast black and white, as if the Harkonnen's black star does not radiate the same bands of the visual spectrum as we enjoy on Earth. It didn't look like black-and-white film, it looked like everything was lit by a black sun. It was brilliant (pun intended).
One area that is hard to do well are the visions and voices that Paul experiences. We're told that his dreams and visions are of a future that could be, and we hear voices that may be the Bene Gesserit witches collective mind (or something), but the risk of showing mysterious visions with no clear provenance or reality, is that too much of them may confuse the audience as much as Paul. I think the main theme Denis Villeneuve was getting at is, in order to overthrown the galactic tyranny and be the savior of Dune, a holy war is necessary, and in the war many will die. The dreams are Paul's way of understanding that sacrifice, and preparing him to be able to make that sacrifice. Paul comes a long way from the oversleeping teenager awoken by his mother at the outset of the first movie.
Zendaya is spellbinding. Did you ever watch a couple onscreen that generate so much palpable heat, that you feel kind of embarrassed to be watching them looking at each other? That's the level of chemistry Zendaya and Chalamet have for each other. Which makes Zendaya's role as Paul's "best friend who remembers where he came from before he got big" so successful. She becomes his confidant, but then he begins to draw away from her. I loved that Paul did not talk too much, indeed, it felt like pages of dialog were cut out, and for the better. That made his final words to her "I will love you for as long as I breathe" so important and memorable, with what follows. We know she knows how ugly he's becoming in order to save her world. By the end, it's hard to tell if she refuses to accept the necessary sacrifices he makes to wage holy war, or whether she's only heartbroken that they had to be made.
If there is a misstep in Villeneuve's Dune, it's some of the all-star casting. Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Oscar Isaac, they are all stars, they all grow fine beards, but they also have meaty parts. Rebecca Ferguson, also a movie star (who first grabbed my attention in a Mission: Impossible), does a great job calibrating her journey from anxious mother striving to protect her son to calculating witch whose intentions are unknown. Christopher Walken, on the other hand, could have been a good choice if he had been used more. He could have demonstrated the iron will necessary to be the Emperor of the galaxy with a scary/strong presence. Instead, he says and does little, until a brief speech at the very end, that was delivered much like the "watch up my ass" monologue in Pulp Fiction. Indeed, his daughter (Florence Pugh) had much more to do, but I kept thinking about her as a movie star. The same goes for the witch that seduces the baron's nephew: Léa Seydoux is a talented actress, but she's also a movie star who is too much for a two-scene role. Sometimes small parts need talented character actors.
(Great Barrington Triplex, with Henry and friend)