The Contested Destiny of Dune: Part 2
A throng of ships, brutalist and imposing, nears a ridge jutting out from the umber desert. The people who live in this harsh landscape have learned to subsist on its meager nourishment, making home in cliffs and caves, and they have cultivated a substantial way of life among the endless dunes. They are no strangers to dehydration and death, but they have formed community, art, religion, ritual, and hope that have sustained their life for generations.
The ships, however, do not belong to these people. They are the instruments of a foreign power, a regime that knows little to nothing of this planet other than the valuable resources that can be harvested. And harvested those resources will be, until that regime has fortified its wealth and drained the lifeblood of the inhabitants in the process. Any resistance is met in the only way this regime knows how—violence.
The ships fire, and fire, and fire. They are prodigal in their destruction, offering far more than was ever required. When they are finished, there’s no sign of life left. There’s hardly even sign of any cliff.
The imagery is obvious and intentional and, if Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two accomplishes its intent, sharpened to get under the audience’s skin. Frank Herbert’s story took direct inspiration from Middle Eastern cultures and carried a healthy dose of skepticism toward the notion of empire. It’s not surprising, then, that seeing this narrative arrayed in full visual spectacle would unsettle an audience that has stared at decades of similar footage. Or have we grown so used to such imagery that it no longer disturbs?
Dune: Part Two picks up shortly after Villeneuve’s first entry in the series. The young hero-to-be Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), have made their itinerant home with the Fremen in the desert. Theirs is still a tenuous existence, thought dead by their pursuers but not fully welcomed by their rescuers, and they must adapt to the desert’s cruel morality. But with the help of Chani (Zendaya) and Stilgar (Javier Bardem), they’ll survive.
Paul wants revenge against the vicious Harkonnens for the murder of his father; the Fremen want these foreign invaders defeated for the sake of their community and their planet. This shared goal, however, is complicated by prophecy. Both sides think that Paul might just be the Lisan al-Gaib, a promised messiah figure who will come from another world to rescue the Fremen. But both sides likewise have reservations. Where some Fremen see a messiah, others see yet another oppressor who would twist their religion for his own power. Meanwhile, Paul is disturbed by visions of holy war that leave masses dead in its wake.
On top of this tension, Dune: Part 2 adds some off-world intrigue to the mix. We spend an extended section on the Harkkonen’s home planet. This monochrome, gladiatorial vision—perhaps inspired by the expressionist tableaus of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis—is a welcome change of palette, but it detracts from the story somewhat. There’s not quite enough time given to this culture to make their brutal sense of virtue anything other than cartoonishly villainous. Instead, the digression is put to the strictly utilitarian purpose of introducing the newest enemy, Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler). Toss in some excursions to the galactic emperor (Christopher Walken) and his daughter (Florence Pugh), and there are a lot of threads being woven together.
Villeneuve is an effective storyteller, and he’s shown real flexibility with narrative structure, but Dune: Part 2 feels caught between making all of these pieces clear and giving them the interesting, complicated politics they deserve. As a result, the story is at times frustratingly straightforward. Its central conceit is legible from the opening moments: Will Paul Atreides grasp his perceived destiny as messiah of this land to which he is a foreigner, and what will come of it if he does? It’s a sturdy hinge for the story, but it’s foregrounded with such weight early on that, when we come to the crux of it, it feels rushed and overly matter of fact.
Paul’s is a contested destiny, and Dune: Part 2 is most fascinating when it explores that qualifier. Despite ample foreshadowing, it takes a while for the movie to apply a more critical eye to Paul’s fate. Chalamet is a bit sharper than in the first installment, but he’s still outclassed by those around him, especially Ferguson, Bardem, and Pugh.
Villeneuve’s adaptation shines brightest in its immersive sense of place. He’s especially effective when it comes to scale—it might be his personal motif in a manner similar to Christopher Nolan’s fixation with time. As his budgets and the scope of his films have expanded, he’s made canny use of his resources: Villeneuve has always emphasized the intrusion of the massive into our world, be it the final shot of Enemy or the alien crafts (and the aliens themselves) in Arrival. He approached the techno-industrial world of Blade Runner 2049 with the same eye, rendering his characters small against the monumental detritus of society’s ambition and excess. Here, the gargantuan is a fully natural and enveloping world that the characters find themselves in. Yes, it’s the worms. But it’s also the dry threat of the desert, the stark cliffs—it’s the whole planet. Hans Zimmer’s score is also strong, adding a tone of uncertainty even to moments of triumph. It brings whispered apprehension long before the story directly questions Paul’s messiahship.
Dune: Part 2 is most interesting when it rubs against the thorny questions of power. Even when it’s recognized as a danger, power is awfully alluring. It can be used to rescue, but also to enslave; to rise up, and to suppress. How do we feel about a messiah who claims his role a bit too eagerly, seeming to wield his honor with relish? These political quandaries are given a fascinating narrative playground, but they are often made subservient to action that is decent enough and rendered on a seismic scale. So again we return to the imagery of violence: do the questions of Dune reverberate loudly enough in the scenes of destruction, or will they be lost amid the endless vistas of blockbuster action?
