horizonstar
Dec 2002
$uXor
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Okay, so I finally got around to watching this whole thing. It was, in a word, wonderful.
I was actually watching the VHS screener, rather than the DVD. It was also 5 discs, and it had the B&W in it too. In any case, that particular rip was kinda fuxored because there were minute-long segments missing from the beginnings of 4 of the 5 MPEGs. So I won't comment on the quality at all here in this thread.
But the movie is amazing. One of the most tragic I've ever seen. Far more heart-wrenching than any Shakesperean tragedy I ever read. Perhaps the hardest part for me was that I first saw Dune as a kid almost 15 years ago. And since then, I have watched it several times, both on screen and just going over it in my head. And I read the book (the first one only) and saw the first SF series ... and the basic impression I was left with after the first book was ... "All is right with the world! The Dune messiah came and everyone lived happily ever after!"
But as Irulan points out at the beginning, there is never an end to the story. All good things do indeed turn sour. And every moment of this series just pressed home the point that even the most well-intentioned, powerful people -- even the ones who can see the future -- cannot pave the way for eternal peace and well-being for their descendants.
And none of these messages and emotions could possibly have been conveyed had any of the important players in the story been portrayed by any less than the finest actors. Even Susan Sarandon, with whom I had the most difficulty seeing in her role, ended up fitting her bill to a tee. Irulan (Julie Cox) was amazing, despite the fact that she doesn't seem to have an IMDb page. At first in Dune you hate her because she's the pretty girl who gets everything she wants. But by the end of Children, she is the most upstanding and righteous person in the entire story. I'm completely in love with her now.  Alec Newman's portrayal of Paul and then the older Paul reveals his versatility as an actor, despite his rather one-sided appearance in the first series. Alia (Daniela Amavia)'s insanity, Duncan (Edward Atterton) and Gurney (P.H. Moriarty)'s loyalty, Baron Harkonnen (Ian McNiece)'s infantile glee ... everything was just spot on.
Reading the book is usually better than watching a movie adaptation because the written word can convey subtleties of mood and expression that the actor or camera sometimes overlooks. But not in this case ... each of Jessica (Alice Krige)'s gestures and glances betrayed her lifelong grief intermingled with the detachment of being a Bene Gessirit. Every shared moment between Leto (James McAvoy) and Ghanima (Jessica Brooks) was real for me. As if these were two people I knew firsthand.
I was so drawn into this story -- something that doesn't usually happen to me when I watch such an extended drama. There's so little action in this movie compared to the first SF series, and yet I couldn't stop watching. I kept wanting things to turn out all right, and at each turn there was another setback, another painful reminder of reality even there, in that mythical Dune setting.
I almost can't bear to watch the whole thing again ... I don't think I could sit through it without the hopes that I had the first time -- that everyone could still live happily ever after. But nonetheless I'm sure I will watch it again. It's so incredibly powerful.
I haven't cried during a movie since Schindler's List, and that was at the end ... the "happy" part, if you will. I cried several times in this movie. Part of it was Brian Tyler's epic score. Part of it was the pained tone of the narrators (Cox and, at the end, Brooks) as they summed up in a few short, blunt sentences the totality of the human condition. The characters' pain was so real ... I couldn't avoid being absorbed in it.
Do watch this film. It might be just another good story for you. Or it might change the way you perceive the everyday happinesses that we often overlook.
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03-09-2003 06:11 PM
