Faith and power clash on the core of Dune: Part Two. The film is the second of a trilogy adaptation of the beloved novels by Frank Herbert, a mystical tale of wars between noble families within the vastness of space and the rise of a messianic figure named Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet).
This middle film picks up the story after a brutal massacre of Paul’s family line. Heir of a noble house and the topic of prophecies, Paul wrestles together with his apparent destiny as savior and leader. His mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), a clairvoyant priestess of the matriarchal religious order Bene Gesserit, tries to maneuver him toward that destiny. But his love, Chani (Zendaya), wants only a straightforward life together. Amid this relational drama, Paul leads a desert tribe in guerrilla warfare against brutal imperial forces who need to hoard his planet’s precious element called spice.
Dune: Part Two is a lush adaptation of dense source material. It’s a busy 2 hours and 46 minutes, full of plot and subplots and the constant threat of ravenous, man-eating sandworms. The space battles are a powerful mixture of tension and spectacle, and the desert sand is sort of its own character, functioning as each shield and weapon for the soldiers Paul leads. Though combatants are armed with spacecraft and atomic weapons, many fights come right down to hand-to-hand combat with swords, choreographed to be quick, powerful, and exciting.
These elements make for a fun and fascinating adaptation, with solid performances and delightful cinematography. But Dune: Part Two owes its mental interest to Herbert’s books. Is faith merely one other resource to be exploited in the search for power? Is it one other drug, like spice, that the powerful can claim, use, and abuse? Or is it real, tapping right into a true well of information and sustenance? The Dune series asks but doesn’t try to reply.
A product of the early Sixties, Herbert’s work is deeply thinking about the results of psychedelic drugs. Spice is mildly psychedelic, opening minds to see visions and nightmares. Another substance, called the “Water of Life,” is deeply psychedelic, steadily fatal, and life-altering in its effects.
The Dune stories treat these drugs as each helpful and dangerous, a present for those few strong enough to soak up and survive the visions they induce. That perspective appears like the product of a bygone era, strange to think about after six many years of change in our norms and laws around drug use. The book series’ tackle drugs may need been provocative in 1965, but it surely feels dated and shallow in light of present conversations and concerns around drugs.
Taking one other cue from Herbert’s books, the movie’s universe is vaguely Islamic. The sand, the clothing, and even the language give it a Lawrence-of-Arabia-in-space feel. This is a Western interpretation, in fact, not one originating from the Muslim world itself, and a few elements, just like the Bene Gesserit, are drawn more from Catholicism than anything in Islam.
That sort of storytelling syncretism could be dangerous, but by taking elements of known faiths and throwing them into one other world, Dune: Part Two raises sharp questions on religion and power.
Just as in our world, there are various factions vying for control—even the factions have factions. Some are true believers, convinced that Paul Atreides is a messianic figure who will lead his people to paradise. Others, like Chani, imagine in nothing but their very own strength and swords. And while the believers are mocked for his or her ability to contort any event to turn into a “achievement” of prophecy, nobody can deny the strength of their faith or the strength it gives them. Like the psychedelic spice, faith is powerful and difficult to manage. The faithful turn into a force in themselves.
That’s to not say faith all the time coincides with purity of heart. The Bene Gesserit priestesses, including Paul’s mother, each shape and exploit the religion of the masses. This second Dune film leaves open to interpretation whether the priestesses themselves imagine what they teach or just use it to achieve power. They are each benevolent and sinister, unpredictable and ineffable. In some ways, they echo pagan gods of their selfishness and inscrutability: Their ends are their very own, and the mere humans who cross them are easily sacrificed.
Paul is different. He cares for the people. He eschews power—a minimum of at first. Indeed, he fears his own power and its place in a faith he isn’t sure he shares, dreading his fundamentalist followers and the horrors they could embrace due to their belief in him. He can see the longer term, perhaps multiple possible futures, and his visions involve a devastating holy war waged in his name. This is repugnant to him—yet he’s drawn inexorably into the fray.
The parallels to Jesus are obvious and engaging. Paul Atreides begins his journey seeming loads like Christ: He is foretold, anticipated, believed in even before he’s born. He cares for justice and peace. He is humble, loving, given to service. Like Jesus on the road to Calvary, Paul longs to avoid the dark future ahead of him.
But their paths diverge. Paul travels toward more earthly power, more control, more bloodshed. Jesus, in fact, rejected that path, though his followers expected and encouraged it (Acts 1:6). He selected the cross. Paul Atreides doesn’t. In some ways, Dune appears like an exploration of what may need been had Jesus told Peter to sharpen his sword as an alternative of to sheathe it (Matt. 26:52–53).
The lessons of Christianity are the other way up on this universe: To gain your life, you don’t lay it down—you’re taking one other’s life. The last don’t turn into first. The least don’t turn into best. In the top, the least are sacrificed. The meek inherit nothing. And yet here too, to achieve the world, Paul Atreides must lose his soul.
Rebecca Cusey is a lawyer and movie critic in Washington, DC.
