In this installment of MTC Oscar Series, Nicole Boyd and Bekah Waalkes offer their thoughts on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, a sci-fi epic adapted from the Frank Herbert novel of the same name, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Rebecca Ferguson.
Nicole Boyd:I thought I would not like Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two as much as its predecessor. When I first watched Dune: Part One, I called it “baroque”—which, being a historian of Italian Baroque art, is basically the highest compliment I can give an aesthetic object. I called Dune “baroque” because I found it immersive, like the room-spanning seventeenth-century murals I have spent the past few years studying. Every time I get to see them in the flesh, I marvel at the technical skill required to bring them into being, and even more so at the murals’ tantalizing glimpses of palaces and courtyards that unfold between painted columns, archways, and balconies—worlds just out of reach, which I attempt to complete in my mind’s eye and imagine myself inhabiting.
While watching Dune, I was, of course, well aware I was witnessing a fictional story that takes place in a made-up galaxy, but this did not prevent me from being transported—to feel, palpably, not only the anxiety preoccupying the House of Atreides as they acclimate to Arrakis, but also to feel the arid planet’s heat. And, like Paul Atreides, to wonder obsessively about who inhabits those mountainous sand dunes: the Fremen, the sandworms, those adorable little mice who produce their own water, etc. To be immersed in this world requires patience. The film’s pace is painstakingly slow, its dialogue enigmatic. Some scenes are entirely silent. The film is filled not with action, but with the anticipation of action—visions that do not resolve until nearly the end of the film.
Dune: Part Two seemed like it would be a less patient film. The trailer shown in theaters depicted the eruption of battle between the Harkonnens and the Fremen, and presented Paul more like an unrelenting warrior-hero than the introspective, underestimated little prince we had come to know and love in the first film. This did not speak to me. I have little patience for drawn out battle scenes. I find neat and tidy distinctions between good and evil offensive to my intellect. And (not that it’s relevant here), don’t even get me started on car chases.
When I watched Dune: Part Two, however, I found it just as mesmerizing as Dune—“baroque” in its own way. If Dune is a mural that requires patient observation and slowly immerses the spectator into an imagined world, Dune: Part Two is a chapel adorned with a collection of paintings that are complementary, but distinct. I think of the Contarelli Chapel in Rome. This space houses three paintings by Caravaggio—three acts from the life of Saint Matthew, including the saint’s call, his violent execution, and, at the center of the display, his “inspiration,” an angel urging Matthew to put divine messages into writing. Dune: Part Two, can similarly be divided into acts from the life of Paul Atreides, acts filled with events that any Baroque painter would have been happy to render in paint: Paul’s initiation into the Fremen, culminating in his valiant ride on a sandworm; his deepening romance with Chani; his leadership in combat against the Harkonnen; his consumption of the clairvoyance-inducing Water of Life; his declaration that he is the messiah, the Lisan al-Gaib; and, finally, his victory over Feyd-Rautha.
It is important to note, though: religious paintings of the Baroque were meant to inspire piety, neverending devotion to the Catholic church. Dune: Part Two, in contrast, inspires viewers to question. Paul spends so much energy denying the belief, urged on by his mother, that he is the Lisan al-Gaib. Thus, when he finally assumes this role at the end of the film, we too are filled with doubt. A Holy War begins, but for what cause and at what cost?
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Bekah Waalkes: Dune: Part Two was one of only two movies I saw in theaters in 2024. On March 8, the day after I submitted the final draft of my dissertation to my committee, I got a slushie and a bag of popcorn and reclined a seat at my local Apple Cinemas to the absolute maximum. Afterwards I gave Dune: Part Two four stars on Letterboxd and wrote “biiiiiig duel movie,” a thought I do not remember having, let alone writing down and posting.
I do remember a lot of Big Sand and drone noise and giant worms as public transportation. Dune: Part Two is a film about the danger of a prophetic narrative that makes too much sense to be widely challenged. It is a film about how hard it is to make new friends and do drugs when your mom is around.
I had been waiting to see Dune: Part Two since I saw Dune in IMAX without knowing that Denis Villeneuve had split the book into two movies. And I had been waiting to see Dune in IMAX since I read Frank Herbert’s Dune during the summer of 2021. “This pacing is bizarre,” I had whispered to my friend sort of frantically around hour two of the first Dune, wondering how everything would wrap up in time.
I liked Dune: Part Two more than Dune: both are faithful adaptations of the book and visually striking films in their own right. But watching Dune: Part Two years after reading its source text was by far the superior experience; I had forgotten the finer details of the plot and only remembered the basic contours. Watching Dune after reading the book was like constantly having the progress bar on your screen visible, orienting me to the shape and pace of the film.So you can trust me when I say: don’t read Dune. Don’t read any book before you see the movie in theaters! Don’t assign yourself more homework! Give a book a time to be a book in your head. And give a blockbuster time to be a blockbuster. We go to the movies to reward ourselves, to get some free air conditioning in the summer, to watch something beautiful. To sink in and enjoy.
Nicole Boyd is a PhD candidate in History of Art at Yale University, specializing in seventeenth-century Italian art, architecture, and theory. Her dissertation is an interdisciplinary project that explores the reception of immersive, architectural murals across cultural fields and geographies. She is passionate about Bolognese and Florentine cuisine, bagels, sitcoms, standup comedy, beautiful films, and her Boston Terrier, Oswald.
Bekah Waalkes is a postdoc at Boston College’s Institute for the Liberal Arts, where she researches contemporary literature, attention, and the novel form. Outside of the world of books, her favorite pastime is cloud watching.
In the month of February, MTC is featuring writing on this awards season’s contenders. We asked writers, scholars, and cinephiles for their takes on award hopefuls. By placing multiple short reviews in conversation, we hope to open up critical conversation on these films, as each writer highlights what they think is interesting (or excellent, or horrible) about the film.