Tamara kept telling me how good Ocine 7 Palmas cinema was, so finally we all went there to see Dune: Part Two in VOSE. I was impressed. By the movie theatre, I mean. Huge screen, great sound and, most importantly, electric reclining chairs. Nice.
I have to say that I neither read the novel nor watched the first part. Maybe (I said, maybe) otherwise I would enjoy the movie not as much as I did. Which I did. It’s got stunning visuals: Miyazaki-esque machinery in Kin-dza-dza-ish setting. Not as funny as Kin-dza-dza! though. I find the (apparently important) genealogy stuff pretty boring. How can anyone be surprised to discover that this or that dude is also their sibling/cousin/grandparent is beyond me. Just look at the European royal families.
Paul the main guy (Timothée Chalamet) is a bit meh, and by the end of the movie grows almost as creepy as Frodo. Totally no match for the most psychotic of his secret cousins, Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler). Comic relief courtesy of Stilgar (our Canarian bro Javier Bardem). Assorted Bene Gesserit women, naturally, look like clones of each other. Chani (Zendaya) is both cute and cool, in the style of Miyazaki’s heroines. She seems to be the only principal character who does not buy into the Messiah bullshit. Respect.
Now, the blue liquid known as Water of Life. What the hell is that? According to Dune Wiki, it’s the bile of a young sandworm. Sorry, but there is no bile in invertebrates. My hunch is that it is haemolymph of the creature, and its colour is thanks to haemocyanin, which is not particularly toxic and could even have anticancer effects. (Another theory is that “Water of Life” is simply a translation of aqua vitae, and what we see in the movie is a coloured spirit such as Kosako Vodka Mora Azul brought on set by Rebecca Ferguson.) Never mind that: they don’t give Water of Life to every Tom, Dick and Harry but only to a few chosen. Easy enough to convince the rest that the chosen don’t die precisely because they are chosen. Do the recipients of Water of Life suffer the “spice agony”? Sure, why not, because they think they might die. Never underestimate the power of the placebo.
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