'Dune: Part Two' is a bright and controversial film. About how our team members saw it – in this material.
Cinemas around the world are being stormed by . We didn't stand aside and watched Denis Villeneuve's new work together. And opinions about it within our editorial team were divided, but the film left no one indifferent.
Around the world (even where it shouldn't) the most anticipated film of the year is thundering — 'Dune: Part Two'. Denis Villeneuve returns viewers to Arrakis and again for almost 3 hours
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Denying the fact that 'Dune: Part Two' is a large-scale and even, I'm not afraid of these words, monumental visualization of the novel by Frank Herbert makes no sense. Denis Villeneuve's work in relation to a novel so firmly rooted in the history of world science fiction and so sprawling across many lines, plots and subtexts is colossal. An ode to the world of sand domination through the power of cinematography is sung so lovingly that it can hardly be distinguished from the alluring but disturbing music that bursts into the mind as vividly as the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer.
But still, the film format is treacherously small for 'Dune', and therefore even two films were not enough for a full-fledged development of the plot of one book. Simplifications affected both the overall timeline and individual storylines, which, as in the case of Chani and Paul's relationship, began to play with completely new colors, which is not just upsetting, but even sometimes disappointing.
And yet, Villeneuve cannot be blamed for altering the plot at all: he skillfully uses key fragments of the book, moving towards the finale along a familiar path. But the emotional and semantic context of the actions taken and decisions made is partially lost. Will those unfamiliar with the source material notice this? No. Will it make those who have read it feel a rejection of certain twists? Very likely.
Overall, the film succeeded. The second 'Dune' surprisingly steps on the same rake as the first, but does not fall, but takes off (and this is not the heavy levitation of the increasingly repulsive Baron Vladimir Harkonnen). Here, worms and mysticism of the sixties are everywhere, and the acting task of Rebecca Ferguson is to converse with her own womb. Half of the actors don't know what to do. The great Christopher Walken seems to be trying to remember what exactly he was paid for throughout the film, while Chalamet and Butler, faces of a generation, fight with knives for five minutes.
The grandeur of what is happening sometimes reaches absurd proportions. And with all this, Villeneuve's cinema is unexpectedly mobile and humane. And it's not just that the beloved actor Josh Brolin has finally reached the peak of comedy (and zen, it seems, too), but that in the desert, the camera still manages not to lose the person.
The rather confusing political intrigue of the film, mixing geopolitical conspiracy theory and hatred of totalitarianism, becomes for Villeneuve a mirror of Paul Atreides' personal tragedy. The world leaves Chalamet's character no choice, the hero's path requires precisely a hero, not a person with his weaknesses, passions and conscience, and somewhere by the third hour it becomes finally clear that the vastness of Dune is not a promise of freedom, but rather a mockery of everyone lost in it, of heroes trapped in the grip of their sad fate.
Oddly enough, it is the gigantic landscapes of Arrakis that show Villeneuve as a precise and intelligent portraitist, and in the old myth — a story that is too human.
The second 'Dune' turned out to be large-scale and shocking not only because of the increase in the number of action scenes, but also because of a darker immersion into the world of intrigue and endless cycles of violence of the Empire. If in the first part we, together with Paul Atreides, learned what Arrakis is and slightly approached the desert with its secrets, then the sequel embodies the story of the rise of a messiah onto a complex political arena.
No matter how far the film is from Herbert's original work, it makes the right impression. It is a beautifully made, intelligent and, compared to , dynamic film, claiming to be Denis Villeneuve's magnum opus. I especially want to highlight the artists and cinematographer Greig Fraser: their work can be judged at least by the scenes on the Harkonnen planet with eerie abstractions and black-and-white faces.
Let's talk about Denis Villeneuve's 'Dune' from two points of view: those who have read Frank Herbert's books and those who have first encountered the planet Arrakis and the conflict unfolding around it.
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'Dune: Part Two' is not a great film, but close to it. It is a blockbuster as it should be in 2024: intelligent, not forgetting about spectacle that takes your breath away (the hero Chalamet's first ride on a worm is, in terms of potential, of course an iconic moment), with colorful characters.
Denis Villeneuve managed to find the perfect balance between Frank Herbert's unwieldy text, audience demands, and his own vision. While preserving the main leitmotifs of the source material, he made an absolutely his own film — mesmerizing with its beauty, meditative, and cutting into memory both with individual fragments and with the feelings during viewing. And it's even surprising that the plot about the Chosen One, worn to holes (including by those who were inspired by the original book), does not look like something alien to the times. Perhaps it's the times themselves that are like this now, and everyone needs a little faith in a better future.
Villeneuve not only turned a complex and sometimes strange science fiction story into an exciting adventure, but also returned to cinema audiences faith in the magic of cinema. The second 'Dune' became that reminder that cinema can transport us to new worlds, from the visual component to the intricately built world. And even more than in the first part, deep and philosophical themes played a role here, and the world became richer, fuller and more exotic.
In many ways, the effect is achieved through a magnificently constructed frame – from extreme close-ups for greater emotionality to black-and-white aesthetics with a demonic beginning – scale, captivating and memorable sound design. Technically, the picture is so delicious that sometimes you forget that all this is unreal. The film managed not only to visually stun, but also to preserve the development of complex storylines, characters and personalities. Now remember which of the recent films with a promising cast really lived up to itself? And which of the recent films showed some of the most impressive battle scenes? And for which film was the language of the desert planet meticulously developed?
'Dune' is built in a very correct way, forming a new science fiction universe for moviegoers around itself. Attracting not only fans of the books, but also a new audience. And in my opinion, it is doing a great job.
What do you think of the film 'Dune: Part Two'?
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