Dune: Part Two

I once read, or heard somewhere, that the ruler of a country or an empire had to be a sociopath, a person with no empathy.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to make the required life and death decisions that a ruler must make and get to sleep at night.  How much truth there is in this is probably debatable.  It sounds like one of those things someone will say to be dramatic.  I don’t believe that I’ve ever heard of a world leader being questioned about it.

Certainly, someone who commits his country to war must find a way to turn down his empathy.  They would be crushed under the weight of all those bereaved parents, widows, and orphans and paralyzed by guilt.  Perhaps the price for power is a part of your soul.  This is the decision facing Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) in Dune Part Two.

Part One ended with the Harkonnens retaking Arrakis and control of the spice.  They killed Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac), Duke of the House Atreides, therefore destroying their bitter rivals forever.  Or so Baron Vladimir von Harkonnen (Peter Skarsgard) believes.  In reality, Paul and his Mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), escape into the desert and are taken in by a band of Fremen, led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem).  It’s a hard life in the high desert and Fremen tribes cannot afford to take on anyone who cannot contribute to the general wellbeing.  Paul earns his place by killing Jamis, a Fremen warrior who challenges him to duel.  Jessica is spared because she is a Bene Gesserit.  What Stilgar didn’t tell her in the first movie is that Fremen’s Reverend Mother is dying, and they need a new one.    

The first hour or so of Part Two is Paul learning the ways of the Fremen and gradually gaining their trust.  Chiani (Zendaya), the woman he has been seeing in his dreams since he was on the Atreides’ ancestral home Caladan, is a warrior in the tribe.  They get closer and eventually start a relationship.  The tribe continues to prosecute a guerrilla war against the Harkonnen’s spice harvesting operations.  Paul wants to banish them from the planet.  He also wants revenge for his father’s death.  But because of his carefully cultivated genetic makeup—the Bene Gesserit has been breeding the progeny of the great houses for centuries in order to produce a ruler who will bring unity and peace to the empire—he has prescient visions and he knows that in order to achieve his goals, he must use the Fremen legends—which were planted by the Bene Gesserit centuries ago—and become their messiah.   He also knows that if he taps into that fanaticism, millions across the galaxy will be slaughtered in his name.  He will become worse than the Harkonnens.

And the Harkonnens are plenty bad.  Baron von Harkonnen plans to use his newly reacquired control of the spice to overthrow the emperor (Christopher Walken) and put his youngest nephew, Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) on the throne.  Feyd-Rautha IS a sociopath.  His hobby is fighting in the gladiatorial arena and killing Atreides prisoners.  He also likes to try out his new knives on members of his staff, especially if they question him.  Feyd-Rautha is another attempt by the Bene Gesserit to create the Kwisatz Haderach, the leader they’ve been trying to breed.  He’s smart, competent, and utterly ruthless and if anything, he’s worse than his uncle.

The first film had a huge effect on me, as you’ll know if you’ve read my review.  There had been two unsuccessful attempts to adapt Frank Herbert’s novel in the past and I wasn’t sure if director and screenwriter along with Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve could succeed.  He triumphed.  For this one, it may be that my heightened expectations worked against me, but it seemed to me that the first hour was slow and the climactic battle for Arrakeen seemed rushed.

But I still recommend this.  It is a beautiful film that demands to be seen in theaters.  The acting is first rate, and all the technical elements are amazing.  It is also a statement on the nature of power.

Dune Part Two is playing in theaters.