Dune: Needs More Sweat
The new “Dune” is gorgeous, smart, and airless as hell.
World-building is hella hard. One thing many writers miss about world-building is that it isn’t solely the purview of speculative fiction—all stories require the creation and maintenance of a fictional universe. No matter how realistic your the world in your novel is, it’s still a fictional world. And thus requires building. And maintenance1.
Dune, of course, is sci-fi, and is set in an extremely fictional, not-at-all real universe that Frank Herbert created out of whole cloth2. Filming Dune is an incredible challenge, but Denis Villeneuve pulled it off—his new Dune looks incredible3. The compositions underscore the hugeness of the universe, the tininess of the people, and the sets and locations look appropriately alien but functional. I enjoyed a great deal about the film, although it’s emotional palette is a bit ... beige, and there’s simply no way to make the Voice seem anything but kind of silly4.
But I did have one nitpick about the film that stayed with me for much of the running time, slowly driving me mad: No one sweats on Arrakis.
Verisimiliwhatnow?
There’s some debate as to exactly how hot Arrakis is supposed to be. Certainly: Hot5. But the main danger appears to be dehydration, rather than heat, which is why everyone is obsessed with moisture and water. I can accept the argument that Arrakis is a desert planet, and thus humidity is incredibly low, meaning everyone is sweating like dogs but their sweat evaporates. Okay! I can live with that6.
But the lack of sweat is part of a larger problem. The universe of Dune 2021 feels weightless. It looks good, but there’s very little sense of texture or reality, because the actors don’t interact much with their setting. Everything is staged with people standing around, usually not touching anything7. Arrakis is supposed to be a terrifyingly dangerous place. The whole point of House Atreides being given Arrakis is that it’s a trap—the whole planet is deadly. People die within a short period of time unless they’re wearing their stillsuit. And yet everyone on Arrakis just sort of ... exists, with exactly zero sense that they’re in any danger at all.
Part of this is due to the fact that the actors were apparently instructed to keep their faces as blank and expressionless as possible8. It’s also in large part because the heat and the climate never come into play in any serious way. The lack of even a single sweaty brow and the way every character seems to effortlessly wander through the sand all combine to make it feel like they’re on a generic kind of alien planet9—it might as well be a Star Trek set for all the interaction the characters have with their surroundings.
In contrast, consider how George Miller handles a similar theme in Mad Max: Fury Road. That movie so successfully conveys heat and thirst I feel dehydrated after I watch it. That film has texture. The heat, the dust, the sand in your eyes, the visceral pleasure of water is all conveyed in ways that don’t take over the frame but lurk towards the background, giving the fictional universe depth. Tom Hardy looks sweaty and miserable throughout that film in a way I very much wish Timothée Chalamet did in Dune.
Your Inside Voice
Part of the problem—and I can’t believe I’m going to write this—is the lack of a voiceover.
In the book, there’s a lot of inner monologuing. A lot. You get inside the heads of these characters and they ramble on at length, and while it can get a bit wearying it conveys a lot of visceral experience to the reader. Villeneuve’s decision to omit all of that means his characters move silently through the settings, and we’re given remarkably little detail by which to judge or interpret their experience. Since every actor except Jason Momoa and Rebecca Ferguson (apparently) was directed to act with the blank-faced affect of a recently dead corpse, that means that in most cases we have no idea how anything is supposed to feel. Even in the scene where Paul is tested with the pain box, Chalamet works so hard at conveying Paul’s steely resolve resisting the primal urge to remove his hand the audience gets nothing an expression of mild irritation from the actor. It certainly doesn’t convey agonizing pain in any way10.
You can argue that in that scene it makes sense, since Paul Atreides is working very hard to control his reactions. But it’s endemic to the entire film: Everyone acts every scene as if they have their hand in the pain box and they’re determined not to flinch11. Which brings us back to sweat: Since everyone acts like Arrakis is simply a lot of sand and not so bad after all12, covering our actors in copious sweat might have been a little less accurate, but it would have been a lot more satisfying in a way. It would have at least given us something tactile to hang onto, a reminder that Arrakis is a dangerous place.
Villeneuve, in fact, goes so far in the opposite direction of voiceover his film becomes obscure. Character motivations are invisible, in many cases, and many things are depicted with zero explanation. It feels like a movie made specifically for fans of the book, or people who have at least read the book. Nothing wrong with that, but it is an interesting choice to make when you’re in the business of selling movie tickets to as many folks as possible13.
Then again, what do I know? Every year I’m alive I’m dumber than I used to be, and no one is paying me tens of millions of dollars to make a film. Plus, it’s entirely possible the whole reason I wrote this essay is because I’m such a naturally sweaty man and the apparent porelessness of Timothée Chalamet makes me angry14.
Next week: “The Chair” and the (apparently) lost art of ending stories.
I spend hours every day going back to old stories and tending the roots of their fictional universes. Or maybe that’s code for “day drinking” I can’t remember.
And also Lawrence of Arabia.
All I’ll say is that Timothée Chalamet is an extremely attractive man.
Many have noted that the Jedi Mind Trick in Star Wars is a bit of a ripoff of this idea, but it was handled so, so much better in those films I’ll allow it.
Yes, this is the new title of my memoir: Certainly: Hot, or How I Became a Middle-Aged Thirst Trap.
I don’t blame Herbert, since he wrote this in the mid-1960s, but the trope of single-climate planets has to go. I will quote myself from this 2016 Barnes and Noble Sci-Fi Book Blog article: “This despite the scientific unlikelihood that a spherical hunk of rock and metal orbiting a sustained hydrogen explosion would lack what’s known to wonks as latitudinal variations.”
To be fair, I too tend to regard everything around me with suspicion, as if anything might be booby-trapped by some arch-nemesis of mine I don’t even know exists.
There’s a lot of Smell the Fart acting in this movie. That’s not a complaint.
Also, not one instance of someone complaining about sand being in all the places sand is not supposed to be. If I step onto a beach for a second I’m dealing with sand for weeks afterwards, but these folks basically roll their sweaty bodies in sand like breading cutlets and not a single complaint. Suspension of Disbelief: Ruined.
Is it too much to depict the future God Emperor pissing himself and screaming for mercy like a normal person? Well, sure, yes, I get it. But … still.
Is the Gom Jabbar and the pain box the perfect metaphor for life in general (searing, constant pain you have to ignore or you’ll die)? Ask me after the 2024 election.
YOU CAN EVEN RIDE THE SANDWORMS.
[FADE IN]
PAUL ATREIDES (VO): As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a messiah figure.
People who aren’t constantly sweaty and wearing ill-fitting clothes just make me angry. Sure, you’re better than me, but I don’t have to like it.
Obviously you know I exist, Jeff. I tied your shoelaces together at that bar that serves giant plates of bacon as an appetizer.