It is with this fraught history in mind that most directors would not dream of undertaking the herculean task of bringing Herbert’s story to life on the screen. Perhaps Denis Villeneuve, like his protagonist Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), was compelled by a sense of destiny; perhaps, after orchestrating the critical successes of science fiction films Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and Arrival (2016), Dune represented the next mountain for him to climb. Indeed, the qualified triumph of Dune (part one) suggests that there is no better filmmaker working in the science fiction genre today, notwithstanding the likes of Ridley Scott and James Cameron.

It is the year 10191. Paul, the heir to House Atreides – a noble family that controls the planet of Caladan – accompanies his parents Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) to Arrakis, which is inhabited by the Fremen, an indigenous people ravaged by the occupation of the genocidal Harkonnens. The Padishah Emperor, ruler of the Dune galaxy, has ordered House Atreides to oversee the extraction of the spice melange from Arrakis – a precious commodity that can enable space travel and extend the mind’s capacities – relieving House Harkonnen, headed by the nauseating Baron (Stellan Skarsgård), of their post. Duke Leto reassures his son that House Atreides is nothing like the Harkonnens, but Stilgar (Javier Bardem), the leader of a Fremen tribe, is less certain. ‘You come here for the spice, you take it, giving nothing in return,’ he spits at Duke Leto, Paul, and Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), a dependable warrior for House Atreides.   

Early in their occupation of Arrakis, Paul wanders and broods through its sun-drenched desert landscape – one of many opportunities seized by Villeneuve, Australian cinematographer Greig Fraser, and production designer Patrice Vermette to exhibit the sweeping, fully realised world of Dune. These passages, slow and sparse, recall the attributes of art cinema, slightly anomalous in a blockbuster with a budget of US$160 million, though Villeneuve is renowned for eschewing Hollywood standards. Meanwhile, Paul is grappling with the weight of his inherited psychic powers, courtesy of his mother, a member of the secretive sisterhood known as the Bene Gesserit. Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), a key figure in the Bene Gesserit, subjects Paul to a gruelling and painful test, to determine whether he has the fortitude to harness his extraordinary capacities. He is also experiencing hallucinatory, fragmented dreams and visions of the future, usually involving a Fremen girl, Chani (an underused Zendaya), who appears as both his lover and ultimate betrayer.

Zendaya as Chani and Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides in Dune (Universal Pictures)

Where Lynch’s version denudes Herbert’s Dune of its political content – principally, by deifying Paul (Kyle MacLachlan) as the Fremen’s saviour, and fixating excessively on the artifice of the sci-fi genre – Villeneuve and his co-writers, Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth embrace it, raising, though not answering, thorny questions concerning colonisation, resource extraction, racism, and the concentration of political power in the hands of the few. From the outset, Dune’s allegorical nature is clear, even if Villeneuve’s flair for the political wanes throughout the film, which runs for 155 minutes. Departing from Herbert’s source material, the film’s prologue displays intoxicating images of the vast, boundless desert of Arrakis, overlaid by Chani’s despairing voiceover: ‘Who will our next oppressors be?’

Billed as a Hollywood blockbuster, Dune offers a surplus of spectacle. Visually, it is surely unsurpassed by any other film of 2021. But it does demand much concentration from viewers. The first hour, especially, is invested in constructing the internal logic of this fictional galaxy, relying on sequences of barely disguised exposition to render itself coherent. The pacing at times borders on the glacial, which could have been avoided if some of the scenes between Paul and Lady Jessica, for instance, were pruned ever so slightly. Utilising only half of Herbert’s novel, Villeneuve’s Dune also has, in effect, no denouement. It ends, but its diffuse narrative strands, far too many to enumerate, dangle unresolved in the film’s hazy atmosphere, stripping viewers of some kind of reward or payoff for their attentiveness. ‘This is only the beginning,’ Chani tells Paul. She is quite correct. The cumulative effect of these flaws, however, does not significantly dent the film’s considerable achievement.

Like many of the characters in Dune, sundry filmmakers and film producers have ventured to the wastelands of Arrakis, only to be vanquished by its inhospitable climate. Villeneuve’s voyage to that planet does not meet the same fate – perhaps Dune was never unfilmable after all. Rather, Herbert’s dense opus was likely waiting for the right filmmaker, working within the right creative conditions, to realise its magic on screen. While Villeneuve has won the battle, he is yet to win the war. Part two of Dune, slated for release in 2023, should provide an answer to whether Villeneuve has surmounted one of the most formidable obstacles in contemporary cinema.

Dune (Universal Pictures), 155 minutes, is currently screening.