Dune, Part Two – a review for pastors

It is visually remarkable.  If you haven’t seen Dune Part 2 yet, believe the hype about how jaw-droppingly gorgeous this movie is.  The director, Denis Villeneuve, quotes the camera language of (amongst others) Lawrence of Arabia, Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, Gladiator, 2001 – and let’s just say that even in such astonishing company, he’s at home.  

That’s not why we’re here, but I thought I’d get it out the way.

Back in the day, before Darth Vader’s ship chased Princess Leia’s across the screen, there were two competing sci-fi mythologies.  One, from Isaac Asimov, leant hard on the science, with a side order of history.  Basically, he argued, if there were enough humans in the universe, we’d behave as predictably as gas atoms under Boyle’s Law: individually random, but collectively acting in a known way.  His Foundation story spans many centuries, as the predictions of such a scientist play out.  Or not. The history, for what its worth, is kind of collapse of the Roman Empire, with a hint of the unexpected Mohammed.

The other mythology, from Frank Herbert, was the Dune series, set on and around a planet of inhospitable desert, valuable mineral spice, and the movements of the local tribespeople to resist corrupt oppression. There’s more to their world than that (worms, water) but let it be.

Both works had defied attempts to film them: The Apple series of Foundation has received mixed reviews, and David Lynch’s 1984 work, famous among other things for starring Sting in what appeared to be stainless steel underpants, is generally reckoned to be a chaotic mess. 

It’s actually quite refreshing to realise that neither set of novels was written as an attempted movie script.

But now, Villeneuve has done the impossible. Dune Part One was thought to be really good, but Part Two has blown it out the water. Story telling, characterisation, music, effects, and above all making a coherent plot out of a long and complex novel, is a triumph.

That’s not why you’re here either. 

Because Dune was explicitly religious in theme and content, and the movie does not shy away from the book. It’s a mashup. There are lots of Islamic references (prayer positions, Arabic language, costume, prayer beads and veils) –  these have not been uncontroversial, much more than when they were first published in the book.  So is Herbert’s political take:  for the deserts of Dune, read the deserts of Iran, for valuable mineral spice read the valuable mineral oil, for the spice-led exploitation of the Empire, read the oil-led exploitation of the US.  There’s a Holy War (not called ‘jihad’, though).

Those echoes are more explicit today, which has led to some awkward shuffling in seats around Islamophobia or (at best) cultural appropriation. Partly we are more sensitive culturally, and so the lack of people from the relevant areas on our planet playing people on theirs, stands out – though this is better in Part 2.  Partly, we are more visually literate: if you know the stunning photograph ‘Afghan Girl’ by Steve McCurry, of the 12 year-old Sharbat Gula, you will get the vibe.

The Islamic resonances are there in the source material, though, and you can’t film the story without them.

But there are also Judeo-Christian references: principally the idea of a “Messiah’ or Saviour, but we equally share the idea of a holy book, praying, and so on.  I guess the moment when the lead character drinks the water of life in order to die, then live, draws on Genesis 3, Jesus’ own death and resurrection, and his offer of quenching our spiritual thirst.

But the movie and book spin things around, in two ways.  Least importantly they make it clear that these religious rituals operate only on a horizontal level.  There’s no vertical spiritual reality, let alone a deity, behind all this.  Prayer, when it happens, is to a dead relative.

And yet – drinking that water does seem to give Paul Atreides some kind of mystic powers, even if it is in-depth psychological insight into others.  If the 1960’s drug culture (which was so relevant when Herbert originally wrote) looked to hallucinogens for escape to another reality, in this world ‘spice’ (which is a drug, as well as a valuable fuel) opens eyes here and now.  Even to the insights and maybe prophecies from an unborn child.

By and large, though, religion is seen through a secularist, anthropologist’s  lens.

The other spin the books and movie take is on the nature of power and its use of religion as a means to an end.  I don’t think it’s anachronistic to say Herbert novelises the observations of Foucault (and behind him, Marx) into the corruption of religion as a tool of oppression.  The powerful cabal of women, the Bene Gesserit (what do we call them – witches?) manipulate events over centuries across the galaxy for their own ends, and the religion of the desert tribes, the Fremen, seems to be under their control.  Keep a people longing for hope which never comes, and they will endure oppression in the present. That’s classic Marx: religion as the cry of the oppressed creature, the opiate (spice) of the oppressed.

And yet suddenly this young man seems to be the Promised One – the one the Bene Gesserit promised but probably never intended would come.  But is he?  Does he think he is?  Can he fool the Femen into believing in him, so that they do his political will and gain the throne for him? They are, after all, ‘fundamentalists’ (frequently mentioned).  Are the prophecies real, or phrases to be spun?

This is a Chosen One, but he brings Holy war, not peace; control, not liberation; violence, not love.  These themes are – as in the book – ambiguous, and it is to Villeneuve’s credit that although there are clear villains, there are plenty of shifting shadows. This is meant to be morally and spiritually complex, and it succeeds. This Saviour needs saving.

So what are we, Christians, pastors, to make of this?  How to respond?

In part, as I’ve indicated, enjoy and appreciate the craft. There’s no sin in that.

Second, I think we need to realise that this is how a secular and sceptical age sees ‘people of faith’ (I use that clunky phrase because its’ clear that the spiritual sphere in this context means all three Abrahamic faiths –  I make no truth claims here).  Our rituals are seen as powerful for us, as a means of social cohesion and meaning, but impotent in a wider reality.  Prayer changes nothing. Prophecies are an illusion. The words in our books are a mysterious incarnation, which hold power by means of their incomprehensibility.

Worse, faith is potentially something that makes us exploitable and expendable.  It has been used by controlling castes in the past to keep the Fremen under control, and it is being used again, this time by a would-be liberator, to manipulate the desert tribes to fight.

That first reading is how I think we Christians are seen. The second is how Islam is seen. Judaism is not really part of this mix in a separable way.

I am grateful that we have a much thicker, richer, set of themes to respond to than in – say – the Star Wars cycle.  The ambiguity there seems to hang on whether people are good or bad, and how they move between the two.  The ‘Force’ seems to hover somewhere between a secularised Buddhism, and a Manifestation-style magic.  By the way, I’m not dismissing that cycle: in its way it too gave us the saviour story, the resurrection cycle.

But this is something bigger and better – yes, bigger than that opening space chase across the screen (I saw it as a teenager, in Leicester Square, knowing nothing of what would unfold.  I remember, two year’s later, the gasp as we realised Barth Vader’s identity – ‘No!’)

And that makes Dune a worthy discussion partner.  Is religion a tool of social control – and is conceding that, yes it has been and possibly still is, a wrong thing to admit?  Are the longings for a Messiah futile, or do they have an echo in reality?  Will evil always win over good?  Are religious people necessarily naive? Is it possible to marry truth, love and victory?

In other words, we have a chance for a glorious contrast, with a Messiah who does not need saving from his own tortured self-identity.  Who sets us free, rather than oppressing us. Indeed, who challenges the manipulative power games that people use religion for. Who is the fulfilment of the prophecies, in a most glorious way.

There will be, of course, a Part Three.  The story arc must continue, and as far as it can, resolve. There are characters I have not mentioned who will have major parts to play, political and military movements only sketchily put in place.  Characters will continue to grow, and not always in a way that makes us like them.

If it sounds like I admire this movie, you are right.  It’s as eye-gripping as Oppenheimer, and as worthy of discussion.  I don’t know how many people will read (or re-read) the books, but the films do make enough sense in their own terms. They share some of the books quirks, too.  If you’re wondering how, on a planet utterly unlike ours, people can speak a bit of Arabic or use a word like Messiah, then you’ve entered the world of Frank Herbert – his novels are porous like that (Asimov never did that; if you like, it’s like Narnia embracing Father Christmas).

It’s worth seeing on the biggest screen you can find.

I mean, even the logo is gorgeously clever, isn’t it?