Dune Part 2 Follow Up

A few things came to my attention after I posted the review of Dune Part 2 here.

I mentioned that a nomadic desert culture like the Fremen should take from inspiration from real-world. This analysis of the costuming of Dune Part 2 suggest that this was the case, and Bedouins specifically were mentioned. Another video I can’t seem to re-find had one of the actual costume designer, Jacqueline West, say as much, though it was in passing. I suppose the main part of that criticism has more to do with the northern Fremen not being visually distinct from their southern counterparts.

Another criticism came to mind after talking to a coworker who had read the Dune books and saw the movies. The relationship between Paul and Chani was, as Critical Drinker would say, updated from the source material, for modern audiences. Villeneuve’s Chani was essentially a modern American girl acting as you would expect her to, a protagonist with expectations indistinguishable from our own, as a vox auditorum (“voice of the audience”), and in particular, as a fictional proxy for modern westernized women.

I can’t really say how Herbert’s novels were realistic in depicting how a people like the Fremen would operate socially, but how Villeneuve treated incidents like Chani contradicting Stilgar is a good indicator of this update. Chani openly challenging Stilgar, who was a tribal male elder and military leader—in full earshot of other tribesmen and a few important outsiders, no less—would have earned her an immediate backhand from one of the elder women within striking distance (Stilgar attacking her directly would’ve gotten him killed). Villeneuve, if he wanted to go a step further, would’ve had Stilgar bring charges to Chani’s male guardian and seek to have him punished. But to really portray an authentic Arabian desert culture, Stilgar would not have a conversation with Chani in the first place, especially about religious matters; all of that would occur between the male elders and heads of family within the tribe.

Chani’s storming off after Paul’s ad hoc proposal to Princess Irulan was another big departure from the book, I am told. In Herbert’s Dune, Paul had planned this out and told Chani about it, who overall accepted it. She, like everyone else within the feudalist empire, would already understand the wife-plus-concubines system, even if the Fremen didn’t follow it, though the marriage would undoubtedly complicate her and Paul’s relationship. Chani’s reaction to the proposal feels out of place, but not for that reason alone. Paul is nearly mortally-wounded in his duel with Feyd-Rautha, yet as the victor, Paul just saved Chani and her entire people from war, exploitation, poverty, and extinction. All she can think about is her romantic attachment to him? Chani is portrayed more like a brat than someone with whom we should sympathize. I know why Villenuve had to do this, but that doesn’t make it any more valuable as a narrative. It’s simply what audiences want.

Once again, if the Fremen were anything like a nomadic desert culture as we know them to be, a young unmarried woman like Chani would never ever in a million years be allowed to be alone with Paul, even after he became adopted into the Fremen. Any courtship or prospect of marriage would be brokered by family or tribal elders along with her. Paul’s side of the agreement, under normal circumstances where his family wasn’t so deposed, would likewise be involved. Family involvement in matrimonial matters wasn’t just for the potential bride. There was no room for marriage as a venture between two individuals. It was wholly a familial concern. The Fremen weren’t shown to have any structure to support that dynamic aside from the implied hierarchy of the Reverend Mother and the Fremen’s religious sisterhood. Everyone was just winging it as they went, as mishmash of ethnicities that would not occur with such intensity outside of modern cosmopolitan urban environments. Arrakis’ environment and political situation is nowhere near that dynamic. In the science fiction and fantasy realms especially, you can depict anything you’d like no matter how inaccurate or impossible it would be to real-world physics or human behavior, so why wouldn’t Villeneuve go whole hog?