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| a woman spices things up at the beginning |
The worm-luring thumper device in Dune was similar to the OOO CHA dance performed at the Club Morono Tabernacle. The thumping of the thumper bore an uncanny resemblance to Moronovian chest beating.
Ok, let’s focus on the movie and forget the parallels for now.
Contrary to what other critics might have said, Dune is a memorable masterpiece of the science fiction genre. Lohbado never read the Herbert books, so no can offer no comment about how the film compared to the book. The movie is being judged on its own merit.
The lead character Paul, the messiah who will lead them to true freedom, was an attractive young man with a gorgeous mother, enough to make Oedipus blush. The movie opens, as in two previous Lynch films, with a shot of the cosmos, a face and eerie sound. The viewer is pleasantly greeted by a gorgeous talking head superimposed over the stars. The woman’s face gradually solidifies, so one can appreciate her gorgeous lips and beautiful eyes, silky smooth skin and luscious hair, a beautiful narrator, offering a kind of Shakespearean prologue.
The spicy girl spices things up with an explanation of how The Spice extends life, expands consciousness and is vital to space travel. The scene opens into the space court of the emperor, who is engaged in conversation with a kind of talking asshole, a porridge-textured talking blob with a sphincter-like mouth who talks in a spooky voice. The plot becomes quite clear from the beginning. It’s a struggle between the old father-like emperor and a young man (good old Oedipus). The rest is gravy to flesh things out, especially the Baron, or "the floating fat man". After the young man’s father is killed, he vows revenge. He learned about the water of life, the bile from newborn worms. It is very dangerous. The plot thickens as the foxy bald granny explains what the young Paul Atreides is up against.
Sound plays a big role in the movie. The young hero learns to control his enemy using a scary voodoo voice he learned from the grandmother woman, who had the young man put his hand in her box of fire, a ritual which enabled him to overcome fear. Sound reaches a climax as the Weirding Modules are used. Even the sound of Paul’s name eventually has the power to destroy. Even thoughts are made audible, to enhance the film-goers experience. In this movie, if the hero thinks hard enough, he'll obtain the desired results. Too bad he's not around to end the many droughts in the world right now and the water shortage. If only heroes with such powers were for real, they could solve environmental problems!
The movie is filled with beautiful visual effects, lots of pattern and geometric shapes and some nice sky and dune photography. The space ships and various flying devices would make awesome plastic models to give to boys for Christmas. To make it more fun, there’s a prophesy, a holy war which will cleanse the universe and bring the characters out of darkness.
The sand worms are quite cute, sort of like dryer vent hoses made into intestinal tubes. Lohbado didn’t mind watching a shorter version of the movie than Lynch intended. For example, the viewer is spared a long courtship scene. In the space of about sixty seconds, the hero meets a beautiful woman and they fall in love with each other for life. This allows the film to maintain its focus, the holy war, the walk without rhythm to not attract the worm, so that the worm goes to the thumper. The thumper sounds like the bass machine that was popular in car stereos a while ago, the kind that made things vibrate. The thump is so heavy, for a moment Lohbado forgot all about the film and got swept up into the thumping thump heart beat OOO CHA... and here’s where it gets mysterious, the supernatural or occult voodoo of the Weirding weird sound. The hero obtains the power to shout and to crack walls and stone floors.
Club Morono highly recommends this movie and gives it thumbs up and five stars... a cosmic tour de force.
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