Visually-stunning masterwork is made hollow by the perfectly independent (but incredibly boring) Strong Female Lead at its core
Between its inhospitable wilds, bloodthirsty legions, cryptic court drama and the threat of nuclear war, Dune: Part Two has nearly every element of a sci-fi epic. But despite the breathtaking visuals, the epic fell victim to the 21st-century aversion to love.
The film itself is still a masterpiece; don’t worry. The story picks up right where Part One left off, with the young duke Paul Atreides having just joined the Fremen, the Berber-slash-Bedouin-like people who populate the desert planet he’s stranded on, to evade the troops of his family’s rival faction, the House Harkonnen.
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Much of the film expertly contrasts the old civilizational order, housed within massive geometric works of architecture in the style of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, with the sandy sea of chaos, filled with society-swallowing worms. Ousted from the former, Paul has to decide whether to harness the latter to regain his rightful seat of power (and perhaps more).
And power, director Denis Villeneuve does well: Part Two follows a few key players as they scramble to climb the interstellar feudal hierarchy. Some are sly, some calculating, some brutal; importantly, each is believable.
But at the centre of this brewing storm is Paul, played by Timothée Chalamet, and his love interest, Chani, a Fremen woman played by Zendaya. Introduced in Part One, she appears mainly in dream sequences to hint at a powerful future bond; in Part Two, that bond simply can’t materialize. No magnetism can be found.
The problem? Romance is pretty difficult to stoke when only one person wants what the other has to offer.
Physically, Paul and Chani are implied equals, both somehow adept at hand-to-hand combat against much larger men. He doesn’t have an intellectual edge, either; he depends on her for survival instruction, friendship and integration into the culture. This alone isn’t necessarily a problem, as romance is built on reciprocity, and the young duke has plenty of strengths to offer in return. His leadership skill and control over an arsenal of nuclear warheads are prominent perks, but Chani doesn’t really care. He’s fascinating because he’s foreign, but that’s about it.
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Perhaps that’s why the relationship at the heart of the story, the lens through which the viewer learns about the world, seemed so mechanical. Long gazes happened, but they were awkward. Vulnerability was expressed, but only by one party (the male party). Sex-implying nudity took place, but seemed passionless and obligatory. A few bits of affection were exchanged, but they were easily forgotten by the second half, when Chani spends nearly the entire time angry or frustrated at an ambivalent Paul. If it weren’t for the odd variations of “I love you” sprinkled into Chalamet’s script, it would have been easy to forget that a serious relationship was taking place.
A director doesn’t have to nail the romance element to make for a great film, but with three long hours of runtime, you start to wonder why so much screen time was dedicated to the shadow of disapproval from an angry girlfriend who struggles to connect with the protagonist to begin with. What about the economics of the planet’s dominant industry, spice production? What about the warring feudal houses? Precious minutes could have been dedicated to something far more interesting.
Some of it no doubt comes down to casting. If actors don’t have chemistry, they don’t have chemistry. But much of it also comes down to artistic choice. Book Chani is flirtatious, cautious, but still supportive — and importantly, interested in Paul. Film Chani is gruff, cold, disapproving of Paul’s rise and always stomping out of frame. The rest of the female cast, in contrast, all manage to pull off varying degrees of power, grace and sensuality. It was specifically the female lead, the protagonist’s other half, whose femininity had to be downplayed.
Dune: Part Two seems to fall victim to the same zeitgeist that has attacked romance in Hollywood, particularly in the post-Weinstein age. Understandably averse to creating shallow sex symbols and helpless damsels in distress, filmmakers have overcompensated with the increasingly-common Strong Female Lead: perfectly independent, perfectly capable at fighting for herself and perfectly unhindered by her smaller structure and muscle mass.
But it turns out, she’s remarkably boring. She’s Chani in Dune, Rey Skywalker in Star Wars, young Galadriel in the Amazon prequel to the Lord of the Rings … throw a dart at the Marvel ladies and you’ll hit one there, too. They’re variations of the same plan: physical fighters, wise tacticians despite their young age, inexplicably talented at everything and so on. They rarely have to use wit to compensate for their smaller size — if they get stuck, they just brute force their way out.
This renders them oddly sterile. They don’t need a teammate who can provide strength and protection. As the know-it–all leader, they don’t need to rely on anyone else’s knowledge or experience. Intimacy can’t be a risk, because if they have any private vulnerabilities, they’re trivial at best. They don’t lack anything, so, like a noble gas, they can’t bond with anything, either.
Villeneuve can do tragic, doomed relationships: see Blade Runner: 2049 and Arrival. The central couple in Dune is headed in the same direction, but when the fall happens in a presumed third installment, it won’t make much of a thud, because it never rose to a convincing height in the first place.
Dune: Part Two is still well-worth the watch in the theatre. But if you find yourself wondering why it feels so aseptic, perhaps consider the lack of love.
National Post
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