Desert Power: Disenchantment, Misrecognition, and Geo-Philosophy in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One
Desert Power: Disenchantment, Misrecognition, and Geo-Philosophy in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the paper is to contribute to the discussion and debate on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One by using a film-philosophical approach, which will take into account how particular aspects of the storyworld, stylistic patterns, and specific chronotopes inform the film’s singular take on the famous story/saga. The article contends that the film puts forth an operatic aesthetic of disenchantment and misrecognition and strategically uses ambiguity and uncertainty as existentialist motifs to deconstruct ideas of heroism and predestination. These affective dynamics provide the storyworld with an eerie tension stressing lack, loss, mourning, and powerlessness. Concurrently, the cinematic chronotope of the desert presented in the film, in contrast with that of classic epic movies such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962) by David Lean, exists as a living and immanent organism embodying an unresolved dense field of possible ethical experimentations.

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