What does it take to get me to watch a documentary nowadays? Well, a focus on movies helps. I once watched the divisive David Lynch Dune flick (1984) and half-wished I hadn't. Sure, I got the gist of a space epic in which humans vie for control of a desert planet known for an enlightening drug called "the spice," but its unappealing presentation led me to postpone reading the first Frank Herbert book for many years -- after which I was impressed.
Alejandro Jodorowsky was a cult director in the 1970s and had his own ambitious designs on adapting Dune to the big screen, but no studio would take him up on it. This doc asserts that his storyboard, which later became a graphic novel, makes it the most influential movie never made. Scenes in many finished movies, including Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, echo it. Herein, the main focus lies on the work that went into the project.
I had no idea that Jodorowsky was Chilean. He alternates between Spanish and an English poor enough to have subtitles. We also have subtitles for the French of producer Michel Seydoux and the German of late famed artist H.R. Giger. When we're not seeing people talking at the screen or clips from other movies, we're mostly seeing sketches from the storyboard, which has notes in French alongside English. Many have been crudely animated. In general, you can't afford to look away from the screen for long.
Alas, I am not entirely convinced that Jodorowsky would have done better than Lynch. The clips from Fando y Lis, El Topo, and The Holy Mountain show him to be highly artistic but bizarre, obscene, and generally tasteless -- basically Lynch on "spice." This would outweigh any benefits from casting Orson Welles and the absurdly avaricious Salvador Dali. (Not surprised he loved Dali's art; so do I, but I find bizarre and obscene imagery more tolerable in paintings than in live-action film.)
I'll grant that the storyboard makes some interesting changes, especially with regard to Paul's pseudo-messianic nature, which yields a whole other ending. Jodorowsky actually takes pride in his infidelity to the source material, not because he doesn't like the book but because he believes that directors of adaptations should change things on general principle. I'm afraid he uses a really disturbing analogy: To paraphrase, "You shouldn't respect your bride; you should rape her to produce a child -- but with love." Mrs. Jodorowsky was not available for comment.
To me, the biggest joy of this documentary is getting caught up in the emotions of the people who had a hand in the project. Jodorowsky took it so seriously that he had his son Brontis take years of martial arts lessons in preparation for the lead role; you can imagine how Brontis felt. In a way, it's a walk among madmen that takes you into another world for a little while and, like all good vacations, enhances your perspective. (And I do mean madmen: No women turned up in the real-life narrative, and the only one on camera is the widow of Dan O'Bannon.)
Oh, in case you were wondering, Jodorowsky breathed a big sigh of relief when he saw how much Lynch had dropped the ball.
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