Dune (1984)

REVIEW

Whatever one's opinions of David Lynch's vision of Dune (1984), there's no denying that it's a unique film, one that is alternately fascinating and irritating, possessed of moments of great beauty and long periods of intense boredom. It's clearly Lynch's least effective film, yet contains some of his most striking sequences, a film that tries - and fails, albeit in the most spectacular fashion - to cram an epic, much loved but over rated SF novel into the claustrophobic confines of a two hour ten minute movie.

Frank Herbert's novel, the first in an increasingly irrelevant franchise, is one of science fiction's great sacred cows. Its sprawling and complex narrative features one of the most densely imagined societies in the genre but is burdened by often indigestible prose, a tendency to preach and a disappointing interest in mysticism and pseudo-religion. It remains, however, a significant text in the development of SF as a serious form of literature and numerous attempts were made to convert the complex narrative into a film. All failed until Lynch's unique vision was trained on it, resulting in this bizarrely schizophrenic affair.

Even the most detailed synopsis will fail to capture the complexities of Herbert's tale and certainly Lynch seemed to have no idea how to compact the story down to a manageable running time. Rumour has it that the original cut ran almost nine hours (though in recent years these tales have become increasingly discredited and a four hour cut seems most likely) and certainly as it was released to cinemas, Dune shows evidence of having been rapidly re-edited, necessitating often laughable voiceovers to explain what's going on. As a result, the convoluted storyline is virtually choked to death. The only people likely to understand it all were those who knew the novel intimately - yet they were precisely the people most likely to be offended and disappointed by what amounts to an edited highlights compilation from the original plot. The last part of the novel suffers the most, with too much emphasis placed on the arrival on Arrakis and not enough on the war that erupts when the Harkonnens trigger the Fremen jihad.

Yet no film by David Lynch is entirely without merit and though this may the least effective of his works, it retains his distinctive touch in both production design and the peculiarity of the dialogue. Lynch's evocation of Herbert's exotic panoply of distant worlds is remarkable, envisaging the far future as a baroque carnival of darkness and light. The stunning photography, from one of the masters of the art, Freddie Francis, adds immeasurably to the sense of otherworldy ambience, though the special effects are, on the whole, disappointing, particularly the hopeless sandworms, which look precisely like the puppets they were.

Equally disappointing was the soundtrack. Forsaking the industrial porridge of noise that typified his earlier work (Eraserhead (1977) and The Elephant Man (1980)) and before his fruitful collaboration with the excellent Angelo Badalamenti, Dune is unfortunately saddled with an inappropriate and frankly rubbish score from tedious American rockers Toto. The only exception is the sparsely used but achingly beautiful Prophecy Theme, another stunning synthesizer meditation from the always reliable godfather of ambient, Brian Eno. Only once in the entire film do we experience anything even remotely like real emotion and it's a moment that's due almost entirely to Eno's contribution - as Paul Atreides lies in agony in the desert surrounded by the tatty sandworms during the Water of Life ceremony, Eno's soaring contribution comes into its own and the result is a powerful moment in an otherwise too stately and lethargic film.

Dune is a curious beast, one that occasionally leaves the viewer overawed by its brilliance before plunging them back into the pits of apathy. Whether the full length version (often rumoured to be about to surface on video or as a cable mini series) would be any better is debatable and, like Cronenberg with The Naked Lunch (1991) and, to a lesser degree, Crash (1996), it may be best for Lynch to simply admit defeat and acknowledge that the novel was unfilmable but that he gave it his best shot. It certainly didn't harm his career - his next film was the remarkable Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks was soon to follow.
KEVIN LYONS

Last Updated: 15 October, 2008