My first exposure to Dune was when I was a young boy. The Far East Network's Philippine arm (FEN-P), made to service American troops stationed abroad, was to screen David Lynch's 1984 adaptation. I was a fan of science fiction even at a young age and the strange images of Lynch's equally strange adaptation hooked me in. I prepared myself and watched the film on its scheduled Friday night showing while my mother was asleep, hoping that my father wouldn't come home - at least until the film was over.
What I ended up watching (my first Lynch film, as it turns out) was indeed strange, but was otherwise a rather conventional take on the hero's journey, or monomyth. In Lynch's interpretation Paul Atreides' words are the words of God Himself. Lynch's Paul is chosen by destiny and endowed with the power of miracles - powers strong enough that it can make it rain on a desert planet.
FEN-P went away with the Americans, leaving a country, long made complacent under the sway of colonial masters, to fend on its own. It hasn't been a smooth ride since, and we're just months away from an election that will affect the lives of millions. But the Americans' hold on our history, as allies and liberators that "gently" carried us to self-sufficiency, remains. Of course, real history paints a different, if a more nuanced, picture, but colonial mentalities tend to stick for a long time.
It was only during my college days that I read Frank Herbert's seminal 1965 science fiction novel Dune and found out that it actually deconstructs the idea of monomyths. Monomyths are deeply rooted in the creation of many religions, which is why they take root and spread so easily. In the midst of an impoverished, suffering population, the idea of a messiah that could solve all their problems is enticing. It has been used as the tool of many a conqueror in Earth's history, and it was used here to serve Paul's interests. While Herbert's "original" Paul has superhuman powers as well, he is but a speck in the larger machinations of the universe. In its omniscient third person point of view, the book is written as if it were told as a legend, by historians. Quotations from the writings of Irulan (who serves as Paul's personal historian) preface most of the chapters of the book. Myth and history are intertwined - mythmakers create history and mold it to serve their ideology or purpose, regardless of what the person at the center of that myth thinks about it. Truth is not necessarily a requirement in the creation of these myths. Like what happened in my country, history was molded into myth, turning conquerors into allies and saviors.
In that sense, I think that Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune (or at least, the first part of it) deeply understands this theme. Subliminally, it does so with its grandiose framing, juxtaposing its characters with large and imposing vistas - sometimes so grand that the scenery dwarfs its subjects. Villeneuve's Paul is much like Herbert's Paul - possessing all these powers yet reluctant to step into the role that mythmakers and history have laid out for him. He is deeply aware of what a leader like him can accomplish, and what a leader like him can leave behind - veneration leads to fanaticism, which leads to nothing good in the history of man, ever. In fact, Herbert's subsequent books deal exactly with the folly of charismatic leaders - specifically the consequence of their legacy, and the curse of omniscience.
This idea of the smallness of the individual in the grander scheme of things is also seen in how Villeneuve decides to portray the story's point of view. In the books we are privy to the schemes of the Emperor and his plan to eliminate a potential threat to his throne. Thus, in the books, one of the most compelling elements in the story is the constant double-guessing and subterfuge involved, perhaps embodied the most in the characters of Count Fenring and his wife, both characters that have been omitted in this adaptation and in Lynch's 1984 film. In Villeneuve's film, we see the goings on mainly through the eyes of Paul and his immediate family. There is a sense of something going on in the background, but Paul does not completely know, and by extension we also do not know what that looming threat is.
Paul moves through the story assailed by visions - not just of the future but of alternate realities, destinies where foes become friends and destinies where his rise to power fails. Part one thus ends on a thematic level - albeit not a very satisfying one for some - where Paul locks the course into one particular future with potentially horrifying consequences for humanity as a while.
With all that said, the narrative meat of the matter lies in the second half of the book - exactly the half that hasn't been adapted yet. I do not feel like I can completely assess Villeneuve's vision for Dune as a whole without seeing that part. For now, all I have is this "incomplete" film. And even in assessing this work by itself, the film has its share of problems. In trying to prune down the film into something that can be digested by mass audiences, the adaptation loses some of the cultural complexities and nuance that Herbert injected into his book. It's possible that Villeneuve will address these problems in future installments of the work, but as something that stands on its own, it's reasonable to come up with the assessment that this feels like half of a film.
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