Star Wars for adults, for whom director Denis Villeneuve convinces us with the intensity and urgency of his authorial vision of how to convey novel mythology.
Pros
- Excellent direction, acting and visuals
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Minusy
- Too lengthy for someone
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Dune from 1965 by the American writer Frank Herbert is one of the most famous sci-fi novels. It received five sequels, and work on others was halted by the writer’s death in 1986. It was followed by his son Herbert and writer Kevin J. Anderson, who created two more sequels to the original series, two prequel trilogies, taking place before the first volume, and other books. from this world.
Long exposure
The world is the dangerous desert planet Arrakis, called the Dune, on which the melange is located as the only place in the universe. The rare spice that prolongs human life gives its users specific psychic abilities and allows them to travel between planets faster than light.
Although the Emperor entrusts control of the planet to the Atreides, he actually has other intentions with the influential clan. And so, together with the cruel Harkonnens, led by Baron Vladimir, he prepares a trap to sacrifice the new ruler of the planet, Duke Leto Atreides – who wanted to make peace with the wild indigenous Fremen living in the desert. It is among the Fremen who flee Leta’s concubine and member of the “witch’s” sisterhood, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), along with her son Paul (Timothée Chalamet). Here Paul meets a girl from his visions …
The film narrative covers about the first half of the famous book. It acts as a long exhibition that is to introduce us to the laws of this world with its mythology and individual characters.
For insiders and even ignorant models
Director Denis Villeneuve, who participated with a pair of co-writers in the conversion of this cult material, adapts it to think of both the insiders, who know the book and the ignorant. He inconspicuously leads the latter to gradually absorb all the laws of the predestined world, even at the cost of a certain simplification of the story and the reduction of side characters and lines. At the same time, the number of story arcs suggests that the viewer really has something to look forward to in the second part.
The film narrative thus creates and builds space for other works, it’s a pity that for the audience of this it actually ends in the best. At the same time, however, it is a clever tactic on the part of the creators to force the audience to put pressure on the studio to make other films from this world.
Focused narration
The second part has not yet been confirmed by the studio, but Villeneuve is already working on his screenplay and obviously has big plans for this series. If he could fill them, they could create a kind of Star Wars for adults, as Dune is sometimes called. And Villeneuve would play the role of the modern George Lucas in this saga, or, given the nature of his work, rather Stanley Kubrick.
Because what it offers both in the way of narration and its visual grasp, is the opposite of the cinematography of attractions, which we already associate with Marvelous ones, for example. After all, this was already indicated by his previous works from the sci-fi genre Incoming and especially Blade Runner 2049. Villeneuve overwhelms the viewer’s senses, not with action scenes, but with the intensity and urgency of his authorial vision of how to convey novel mythology. He does so seriously, fatally, without signs of humor.
In a $ 165 million narrative spectacle, he tells a lot of images and lets us drift through the contemplative, atmospheric, lyrical-epic, or whatever it is called, the mood of this opus. The director slowly draws us into power quarrels in the galactic empire and gradually adds to the density of what he intends to do in it.
There is a power struggle, ruthless, where one family goes after another, as in Shakespeare’s tragedies or the popular Game of Thrones series. The clash of good and evil is accompanied by a strong ecological, social, philosophical and political emphasis. There is a topic of sustainability of life, colonialism, the clash of cultures and civilizations or corporate expansionism. You can easily substitute parallels for today, which makes this layered work still relevant.
Absorbing formal page
The content side and the enticing method of its dosing are supported by the formal one, which is equally absorbing. Greig Fraser’s camera, which literally caresses the sand dunes, can capture every shot artistically, with its compositional purposefulness and at the same time intoxication, to which is added the soundtrack provided by Hans Zimmer.
It can already be seen from Timothée Chalamet that he will have no problem tightening the whole series, which I would very much like to see, because director Denis Villeneuve could give it a captivating, unobtrusive and at the same time understandable face even for those who do not know the book models of Herbert’s novels. Judging by at least the first film, which becomes an invitation to a much larger and more complex world, which is beginning to unfold before us.
Danube
- Genre: Sci-Fi
- Original name: Dune
- www.dunemovie.net
- USA, 2021
- Screenplay: Eric Roth, Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts (draft by Frank Herbert)
- Director: Denis Villeneuve
- Hrají: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Zendaya, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista
- Distribution: Vertical Ent.
- Distribution premiere in the Czech Republic: October 21, 2021
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