“Dune: Part One” left Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) adrift in the desert, the last remaining members of House Atreides. By the time “Dune: Part Two” begins, they’ve acclimated to their new, arid surroundings, but find themselves on opposite sides of a prophecy.
Jessica takes the stance of religious zealot – literally. After she and Paul take up with the Freman (the native people of the desert planet Arrakis, where Paul’s father was once upon a time named Duke before he was murdered), Jessica becomes Reverend Mother to a tribe led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem). She’s made it her personal mission to convince the Freman her son is the subject of an ancient prophecy – a messiah destined to bring peace to Arrakis, ending years of colonial rule.
But House Atreides is part of that long standing rule, and the prophecy itself was seeded throughout the Fremen by the Bene Gesserit, a mysterious, magical sisterhood to which Jessica belongs. She claims the prophecy was meant to bring the Freman hope – but hope that’s managed and controlled by an outside force isn’t really hope at all.
Ideas about the nature of prophecy, authoritarianism, and power can be found all over “Dune: Part Two,” Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to his 2021 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal science fiction work. If “Part One” was a stylistic achievement, a hypnotic look into the construction of a cinematic world, “Part Two” is a titanic feat of deconstruction. Throughout the “Dune” series, Herbert takes the construct of a hero and completely dismantles it. With his first film, Villeneuve took the time to build out Herbert’s world in detail, a world we will now watch begin to fall in this second installment. Villeneuve uses characters and their relationships as representations of the larger political and social themes, his tale of a hero’s rise and fall ultimately one and the same.
On paper, Paul Atreides is the perfect hero archetype. Thrust into an impossible situation by tragic circumstances, he’s reluctant to take on the mantle of power, embodying that age-old idea that the person who doesn’t want to be a leader is usually the best person for the job. Where his mother would have the Freman worship Paul like a God, he just wants to be their equal. He wants to learn their ways, talk with them, drink with them, and hopefully, fight with them. They share a common enemy – the Freman want to take back their freedom from House Harkonnen, who rule Arrakis and the spice trade it yields. Paul wants revenge against the family responsible for the murder of his father.
But “Dune” isn’t so interested in valorizing the reluctant hero as it is in scrutinizing how the lull of power can change people, or perhaps bring out what was always there. Paul’s heart might be in the right place, but – as said by Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), emperor of the universe – “the heart is not meant to rule.” In “Dune: Part One,” Paul is introduced to us as a passive character. He’s constantly jerked around from place to place, never in control of his own destiny and with no say in where his path leads. In that respect, Chalamet has a lot more to play with from a character standpoint in this second installment than he did in the first. Paul is finally taking an active role in his life, attempting to make choices that lead him away from his so-called prophetic destiny, uninterested in becoming the outsider destined to control the Fremen. However, there’s still a passive quality to his journey. While the first installment saw that passivity marked with uncertainty, this time a persistent, thrumming dread underscores Paul’s every move as he hurdles – first hesitantly and then with terrifying gusto – towards his destiny.
But “Dune: Part Two” is packed with ambivalence – and sometimes outright hostility – about the very concept of destiny as the validity of the prophecy is constantly called into question. The substance of the prophecy is just vague enough that multiple people could twist themselves to fit its meaning. The prophecy refers to the messiah as the son of a Bene Gesserit. Paul fits that mold, but he is not the only one. For her part, Jessica only agrees to take on the role of Reverend Mother because it will make Paul’s claim stronger. That’s the trouble with prophecy – it’s easy enough to construct.
If Jessica is able to make Paul into the image of a messiah, the Bene Gesserit can do the same. And if Paul and his mother are becoming too difficult to control, they’ll find a candidate who isn’t. The introduction of Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), heir to House Harkonnen and another young man forged in the mold of the prophecy, is one of the film’s most riveting sequences. Under the black sun of House Harkonnen’s home planet, everything is stark black and white as Feyd-Rautha enters an impossibly large death arena to celebrate his birthday, the stadium seeming to stretch on forever into the abyss. Feyd-Rautha is filled with psychotic bloodlust, a trait Butler plays with orgasmic delight. This prophetic candidate relishes his birthright in a way that contrasts with Paul’s resistance to his power and rage.
But by the time the two finally meet, Paul has all but left that resistance to the wayside, and despite how unalike they seem, perhaps they aren’t that different after all. Feyd-Rautha delights in violence in a way Paul does not – Paul has visions of a Holy War throughout the film, a war wrought with death that he has brought to the sands of Arrakis. But as Paul ultimately succumbs to prophecy, he begins to believe there is no other way. And once you’ve made that choice, how much you regret the carnage doesn’t really matter, does it?