Review of the film "Dune" (2021) - the perfect film adaptation of great fiction? Not at all!

"Dune" is about as difficult to criticize as it is to watch - not because it is some especially complex movie (even those who are not familiar with Herbert's novel, more or less everything should be clear), but because in his case the result is completely correlated with the task.

Villeneuve warned a thousand times that he would go strictly according to the book and even for the first novel he would need two full-length films. The author's style of the Canadian director of "Arrival" and "Sicario" does not imply special boyhood - significant pauses are always closer to him than active action. Finally, Frank Herbert's voluminous epic is not the book from which you can make a bright entertaining sai-fi: believe me, Hollywood has already tried.

"Dune" (2021)

"Dune" does not work too well as a movie, but it is strange to root it for it - after all, the problem is not in individual solutions, but in a fundamental concept. This is a tie for two and a half hours to the story, which will happen sometime later, in other films that no one has yet begun to shoot and, if the first part fails (like Villeneuve's last blockbuster, Blade Runner 2049), will never be shot. And this case is not some beautiful figure of speech. The film is really scripted as if it is not an epic two hundred million blockbuster, but a pilot of the series. Although not: even those are more independent.

Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides in the frame from the film "Dune"**

There are a lot of things happening here: Harkonnen and Atreides, Fremen and Sardaukars, terrible rites, political strife, Muad'Dib, finally, huge sandworms. But the elements of the setting are not yet history: Villeneuve just does not have it. The event triggering the central conflict takes place closer to the third hour of the picture (then the first full-fledged action scene happens), and the "quest" of the main character is scheduled only for the very ending. Prior to this, Paul Atreides initiatively elites, hallucinates under the spice, sees Chani in his dream (Zendaya appears in the film for a very short time, mainly looks into the camera with a light smirk) and has entertaining discussions about whether he is still chosen or not.

Some of the Western critics compared Dune with The Fellowship of the Ring - but if these films were really synonymous, then the first part of The Lord of the Rings would end with the advice of Elrond and Frodo would only learn under the credits that he would have to do courier delivery to Mordor.

Zendaya in the frame from the film "Dune"

Yes, "Fellowship" is also perceived as the first act of greater history, but at the same time it has slender internal dramaturgy, and the heroes have a clear goal, a literal point on the map, where you need to get to anything. Villeneuve himself rewarded the characters with an understandable task: to find contact with aliens, find the abducted child, and catch a drug lord in Mexico. It was thanks to the strict narrative form that branded lengths suited his films: he looked quietly at standard genre plots, time and again finding a new sound for them.

In Dune, the plot is blurred, hidden behind an endless series of exposition scenes preparing us for a story that no one is going to tell.

The frame from the film "Dune"

Perhaps the fact is that Villeneuve's style simply did not coincide with the screened text - there is too much information and words in it, while Denis usually tries to avoid unnecessary conversations. In Frank Herbert's novel, complex descriptions of the political, religious and social structure of the future work precisely because this is a book - that is, a work that the reader himself can stretch in time as much as his soul, gradually getting involved in the world.

The film, even the 155-minute one, is a compact text laid behind us in a specific time frame. It is strange to seriously explain the difference between cinema and literature, but Dune shows too well what happens when the structure of the novel is not adapted to the screen, but left almost in its original form.

The frame from the film "Dune"

It turns out an impressive design, a rich and lively fantastic world that sprawls too wide and does not hold shape in any way - like the sand from which it consists. In any other picture, they would tell about all this in 15 minutes, or even completely stuffed the background of the conflict into the opening credits. Here, the outline of the "status quo" occupies most of the timing.

No matter how against literary purists, sometimes for a good film adaptation it is worth throwing out a couple of dozen (or even hundreds) pages. For all this, it cannot be said that "Dune" is definitely a bad movie.

This is a technically perfect blockbuster, not striving to entertain the viewer at all costs, and this is infrequent. As always with Villeneuve, there is a great sound design, impressive even more landscapes and thrillingly recreated details of a fantastic future (the energy armor of the heroes looks especially interesting). There are several acting discoveries - say, Jason Momoa as a charismatic warrior looks more interesting than his more eminent colleagues (they, however, are also good). And the loose structure of the film will probably seem to someone a conceptual success - "the plot fuss does not finally distract from metaphysics." In the end, fans will definitely never see a more devoted film adaptation of Dune - it's not clear to me only whether this is good or bad.

Jason Momoa in the frame from the film "Dune"

Did you like the new adaptation of "Dune" or are you also a little frustrated, like me?)