DUNE : A FORGOTTEN EPIC

David Lynch is a modern artist of the surreal. Throughout his oeuvre, he has made several masterpieces – Mulholland Dr., Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, to name a few. These works extend life and consciousness as you know it. They have the ability to transcend all space-and-time concepts, not in reality but in psyche.

Today, I'll talk about his least impressive movie though, and that is Dune. It was Lynch’s first experience of making a big-budget film, and certainly not a pleasant one. The Frank Herbert epic novel was supposed to be adapted by the auteur director Jodorowsky in the 1970s, but the project never took off. Lynch was hired a decade later to do the film, but due to artistic constraints and inflexibility, the film tanked both commercially and critically.

Now that another adaptation of Dune is on its way to the screens in 2021, with Denis Villeneuve at the helm, I find it important to discuss Lynch’s Dune and why I personally liked it so much.

I’d also like to point out I’m yet to read Herbert’s novel in its entirety, and I’m also aware of the fact that Lynch took his own liberties with the film.

Now, here’s my take on the epic, which is bound to differ from the general consensus.

The film pits two characters against each other on the top of a sand dune of tension – leading to the feud of the millennium. Standing in the Harkonnen’s corner was the Baron, a pawn of the Emperor in his plot against the Atreides, the tyrant that had crushed the hopes of the entire galaxy, a monster with frightening power. Fighting out of the Fremen corner was Paul Atreides, a good-hearted jovial soul who wouldn’t want a fight unless he couldn't avoid it, as the film’s earlier moments suggest.

While how the movie transpires is betraying of its material, I believe the film deserves re-introspection for its storytelling. The story is so well crafted, and had me sold for the most part of the film and here’s how -

1. First, Lynch builds the contrast between protagonist and antagonist, which builds into a personal clash of the Harkonnens and the Fremens.

2. Then, the progressive creation of hopelessness in the audience through the Baron’s ruthlessness and lack of any mercy.

3. In the third tier of the film, we see a forced change in the protagonist’s character. The sleeper must awaken.

4. And in the climax, the antagonist finally gets his comeuppance at the hands of the protagonist, and how.

The beauty of the film lies in how Lynch tried and fit all his narratives into the classic “Three Act Structure of Storytelling”. Any rich narrative is best helped by a Three Act structure – whether it is a play or a WWE wrestling match. Bear with me for a moment here. Remember Moby Dick? Here’s it in 3 acts laid out as the following: Ahab sets sail to find the whale (the hype), Ahab chases the whale against all odds (the fight), Ahab and the whale fight it out till death do them part (the legend). Now, let’s return to Lynch’s work and explain his Three Act technique.

1. THE HYPE – The lives of the Baron and Paul begin to intersect when the Guild starts to fear a conspiracy that could jeopardize the spice production for them and sends an emissary to coerce the Emperor into taking action. The emperor sets in motion a plan to have the Atreides ambushed by the Harkonnens. As the film continues, we learn that the Baron is a horrible monster, as he has everyone Paul cares about exterminated. To this point, we still haven’t seen Paul engage the enemies in full power. We only know how doomed the situation is. The full main event is yet to come, though. This part sets the stage for the climax in ways, by building up the protagonist through the use of mystery. He has prophetic dreams fragmented, call them rumors if you will. These ‘rumors’ progressively start making more sense, creating anticipation in the audience for what’s to come. Is he the one?

2. THE FIGHT – The terror stands out compared to the hope until this point. Paul and his concubine mother are on the run. His father Duke Leto is dead. He looks at the howling moon and swears revenge. He is 'hope' personified, while the Baron and those supporting him are the antithesis. He is the one who kills hope. The whole First Act was about building this contrast. Paul wants to get back at the Baron for killing everyone he cared about. This raises the stakes by ten folds. Paul is the only one capable of freeing the Arrakis from the tyranny of the Harkonnens and the Emperor. However, taking up the battle standard wasn’t a responsibility he wanted. But his circumstances narrow his options of shying from the battle, and helps him build his character. Paul takes on the moniker Muad'Dib and becomes the leader of the Fremen in their fight to wrest control of Arrakis. He teaches the Fremen how to use his house’s sonic weapons that help them even the scales. But, the question begs. Is he the one?

3. THE LEGEND – The story reaches its third and biggest disaster act. The Guild warns the Emperor of the deteriorating situation, of Paul and his forces growing in power each day. The Emperor orders a genocide on Arrakis, this meeting revealed to Paul in a prophetic dream. The dreams suddenly stop after this. Now without the ability to see into his future along with the impending genocide, leaves Paul shook. The hero has failed. Maybe he is not the one? He needs a miracle. There’s all but one glimmer left – he needs to drink the Water of Life – the legend that has led to the deaths of several before him that tried. The hero’s only hope of saving Arrakis from ruin is that the legend is true. He now needs to come in full terms with his identity of the Kwisatz Haderach if he wants to save Arrakis. In a last ditch effort, he drinks the Water of Life and enters into a fevered trance, where he is transformed. His eyes turn blue like the Fremen, and he gains powerful psychic abilities and the ability to control the sandworms. The prophecy was true, after all! He is the one! Paul fully embraces who he is meant to be. Now like Achilles, he only has one thing on his mind – the Baron.

Harkonnen’s fleet suffers at the hands of Paul’s reinforced army. Now at the head of everything, the Baron and Paul must’ve finally faced off. If Paul was to be Peleus’ son Achilles, then the Baron must’ve been his Hector. The outcome was ominous, and while the Harkonnen and Emperor’s army are defeated by our hero just as the prophecy had it; I believe the final tier of the movie became a victim of severe convolution.

There was no battle between the two sets of values – terror and hope. There was no clash of the champions. There was no climax to the Iliad that Lynch hinted towards throughout the last 2 hours of the film’s run time. Instead, we see the Baron being galloped by Paul’s pet worm in a terrible action sequence. One of the possible reasons behind this messed up ending could be the self-regardedness of the producers and the financiers – these guys didn’t allow Lynch any leeway when it came to the run-time. He wanted to have it extended by at least half an hour.

The final 15 minutes of the film make it look diminutive in front of what Lynch was building for the better part of it. I wish we could’ve seen some depths of power to the Baron and the Emperor. The voiceovers from the Princess didn't help either. However, the unsatisfying ending doesn’t take away what Lynch achieved with his piece – the grand visual effects, the music and the theme by legendary music acts Toto and Brian Eno respectively, the weighty acting by the whole cast and of course, the perceived theory of morality at the wheel in this somewhat underwhelming sci-fi epic film with an underlying Greek mythology. He totally deconstructed the fable that was Herbert’s Dune and missed out on several crucial themes of the book. But even in these self-destructive veins of his filmography, Lynch managed to keep the gifts that made the film divisive and visionary alike.