Strength of the Father: “Dune” Is Star Wars for Adults
Two years ago, director Denis Villeneuve described his then up-and-coming Dune project to be a “Star Wars for adults.” The complex characters, relationships, and religious networks that pervade Dune present, if nothing else, the realism of that promise. Villeneuve’s project, an aesthetic mixture of Lawrence of Arabia and the New Testament in space, opens the grandness of these style of narratives from the viewpoint of one family. Dune combines the strain of fatherhood and motherhood, the anxiety of youth, and the dread of religious fervor to create one swelling motion that presents the viewer with the timeless confrontation between the individual and the family.
From the beginning scenes on the Atreides’ home planet of Caladan, to the final duel between himself and a man who has challenged his mother, the main protagonist, Paul Atreides, is continually propelled by the mainstay of his life: The Family. The presence of Paul’s father, Leto, and his mother, Jessica, are presented as the very reasons for his becoming the hero which fate calls him to be. Their guidance and teachings are what equip him for the political and religious roles which he begins to embody late in the film.
The tense and disarming relationship between Paul and his family is portrayed excellently through Timothée Chalamet’s poised silence and reserved displays of emotion. Yet what immediately separates Villeneuve’s more gritted style from the mythological approach of the Star Wars films is the source of Paul’s frustration: the grief which Chalamet displays on screen is always in connection to the hardship which his family both inflicts and receives. None of Dune’s on-screen tension comes from another world or a distant political strife; in contrast to Star Wars, the source is always from the family immediately present with one another, separated not by distance but emotional discord.
Villeneuve’s choice to focus on the family elements of the story is due in part to the original narrative techniques of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel. Herbert brought into his writing the real-world expectation that most of the important characters of history came from strong families, and those families were the visible foundations that built history. He also had the personal conviction that feudal politics occurred organically throughout history; this ensured that family and fatherhood became recurring themes in his work. Villeneuve’s choice to visually present both the father Leto’s regal persistence and the mother Jessica’s psychic training as the reasons for the course of Paul’s life and the effectiveness of his actions carries the mature kernel of the original book series into Dune.
“Herbert brought into his writing the real-world expectation that most of the important characters of history came from strong families, and those families were the visible foundations that built history.”
Oscar Isaac as Leto and Rebecca Ferguson as Jessica had the task of displaying complex individuals who, in-between all of their own anxieties and aspirations, do everything they can to prepare their son to become an image of royalty. In this the actors succeeded. Ferguson moves wonderfully between the true love of a mother and obedience to the Bene Gesserit order, a selective religious organization which she has sworn to serve. Isaac delivers a commanding presence as the father and maneuvers through his dialogue with calm poise, making for a perfect contrast with the tentative and at times negligent behavior which Chalamet displays as young Paul.
Branching out of this core element of family anxiety is the presentation of religious anxiety. Villeneuve’s brief close-ups and uneasy conversational scenes in the Atreides household present the family as it always comes to us, both unchosen yet necessary. Similarly, the slow reveal of the Freman’s religion and their “choice” to announce Paul as a messianic figure reflects the relationship between Paul and his family: family is always and exclusively unchosen, and in many ways so is the relationship between the individual and religion.
Villeneuve’s emphasis on the Freman’s religion relies on this strain between choice and necessity, between Shai-Hulud (the alias of the Sandworm, literally meaning “eternal thing”) and al-Mahdi (Paul’s messianic title, meaning “The Guided One”). Vast shots of the Sandworm strike against Paul and Jessica’s timorous movements across the desert. Orchestrally scored battle scenes jump out to the viewer for a moment, followed by silent encounters between disguised rivals. Throughout the film, Chalamet’s performance serves as the counterpoint to the giant Sandworm, the “eternal thing,” by revealing his anxiety towards the eternal, towards his destiny as the hero.
Paul’s vague dreams and visions—“voices from the deep”—are perfect visual tools, which Villeneuve harnesses in order to present both the viewer and Paul Atreides with immediate dilemmas and conflicting images of the possible future. Not all of them come true—at least, not exactly. Their presence throughout the film can at first seem confusing, but on the second go-round they are more easily interpreted as premonitions of a possible future: portraits of multiple fates which may or may not await him. While Villeneuve is sparing in the lines he reserves for Zendaya’s character, her gradually increasing presence throughout the film in the dreams of Paul Atreides gives the story a more linear sensibility. It is not until the end of the film, when Paul finally glimpses at the truths hidden in those dreams, that Zendaya’s character finally encounters him face to face.
“Family is always and exclusively unchosen, and in many ways so is the relationship between the individual and religion.”
All these elements combine to create a 155 minute edifice that ultimately attempts to reflect life as it appears to us on Earth: grand, confusing, and built on family relationships which we have no control over and yet desperately require. Whereas David Lynch’s 1984 Dune was desperate to carry the full weight of the novel, Villeneuve’s is direct and without excess: he has laid the groundwork of the story on the shoulders of the father and the son; all the other elements rest on the strenuous alignment of the two.
Where Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed Dune project yearned to depict an encyclopedic alienness the size of the universe, Villeneuve has strategically stayed a single course, reserving his budget for the relational grit and realism which has made his first installment both insightful and powerful. In an age reduced on all sides to flagrant commercialism, Villeneuve’s Dune has managed to present to the world a sparse but truthful retelling of Herbert’s magnum opus, and he has done this by recognizing that the strength of the father is a key element which brings about the strength of the son.
