A stuntman will only persevere through so many dangerous pratfalls and snubs before they steal their moment in the spotlight, though David Leitch’s Hollywood satire is not tainted with the bitterness of being sidelined. The Fall Guy is a tribute to that under-recognised breed of performer who is resilient in both mind and body, putting their lives on the line for art, and stoically dedicating themselves to a job that A-list celebrities will inevitably claim the credit for when the red carpet is rolled out.
Though Leitch loosely bases his film off the 80s television series of the same name, there is little connecting the two besides the character of Colt Stevens. Next to Aaron Taylor Johnson’s bombastic presence as Tom Ryder, the actor who Colt doubles for, Ryan Gosling’s understated charm perfectly counters Leitch’s embellished caricature of show business, taking the constant belittlement directed towards stuntmen in his stride. A peaceful life working as a valet seems appealing, especially after the near-fatal accident which pushes him to leave the industry, yet the thrill, romance, and spectacle of Hollywood moviemaking is irresistible. It is only a matter of time before Colt is drawn back in, allured by the prospect of reconciling with his ex-girlfriend Jody during production of her directorial debut Metalstorm, but the path to redeeming his former glory is not so straightforward.
Tom Ryder’s sudden disappearance into a shady circle of mobsters is merely the catalyst for this action-mystery narrative, plunging Colt into the depths of a Hollywood conspiracy as he seeks to track down and rescue the man who has overshadowed him at every turn. Leitch’s celebration of practical stunt work goes far beyond paying lip service too – The Fall Guy breezily surfs along waves of adrenaline-pumping set pieces, opening with Colt falling several storeys to a devastating injury, and appropriately reaching its climax on a pyrotechnic movie set. Some stylistic experimentation in these sequences doesn’t go amiss either, particularly in one night club fight scene that bursts with neon vibrance and drug-fuelled hallucinations.
Movie producer Gail’s claim that he is well-suited to the task of finding Tom due to the natural ability of stunt doubles to go unnoticed is partially correct, but it additionally becomes apparent that only a daredevil like Colt could handle the brawls, chases, and feats of extraordinary physical prowess that the job entails. Hanging from the back of a pickup truck, he surfs on a slab of metal across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and later escapes mobsters by faking his own death in a boat explosion. The narrative moves briskly, though Leitch is wise to hold back his editing in longer takes that let his hand-to-hand combat take centre stage. It is especially worth savouring every second when it comes to the record-breaking eight-and-a-half cannon rolls that stuntman Logan Holladay performs in a crashing car, appreciating the incredible level of coordination that went into such a complex manoeuvre.
Though it occasionally seems as if Leitch is simply searching for any excuse to escalate a scene into an extravagant set piece, The Fall Guy at least acknowledges its own extraordinary artifice. Meta-movie references are abundant here, with Metalstorm’s thinly veiled Dune parody mimicking Hans Zimmer’s score with hilarious accuracy, as well as a Cowboys & Aliens allegory barely concealing the subtext of Colt and Jody’s embarrassingly public post-breakup chat.
Still, oftentimes The Fall Guy seems less interested in satirising Hollywood movie conventions and more in revelling in them, leading to a climactic confrontation that plays out with disappointingly little tension. By exalting escapist entertainment as cinema’s most noble purpose, Leitch misses an opportunity to push formal boundaries in the same way his old collaborator Chad Stahelski has with the John Wick series. This is not to say that the project lacks passion though – The Fall Guy is clearly a labour of love for Leitch, shining a light on an underappreciated industry profession that he worked in for many years before sitting in the director’s chair. If movies are manufactured illusions, then stunt doubles like Colt personify the reality that must be hidden, only to be acknowledged and honoured inside cinema’s artificial worlds with a wry tinge of self-awareness.
When aspiring tennis player Tashi first meets doubles partners Art and Patrick at the US Open, she lays out the metaphor at the centre of Challengers quite plainly. “Tennis is a relationship,” she romantically opines, binding opponents in perfect harmony. As long as they are locked in this combative back-and-forth, they see into each other’s minds in a way that no one else could possibly imagine, anticipating and performing manoeuvres with an impassioned, instinctive efficiency.
The pivotal Challenger match woven through Luca Guadagnino’s narrative is clearly the purest distillation of this ethos, telling a story of friends-turned-rivals that only those who bore witness to their journey might comprehend. Art and Patrick’s end goal here transcends merely winning the game – that would be far too simplistic a motive for men with as complex a shared history as theirs. In reality, there is another player here who has taken her place on the sidelines. Tashi may not have played professionally since her career-ending knee injury, but her impact on this match is just as impactful as Art and Patrick’s, becoming the third person in a love triangle that has spent thirteen years fluctuating between cold resentment and fervent desire.
“Tennis is a relationship” becomes the central metaphor of Challengers, and Guadagnino goes out of his way to infuse it in every level of his back-and-forth narrative structure, camerawork, and editing.
With his laurels resting on the success of Call Me by Your Name, Guadagnino is no stranger to exploring queer romance, and so it should be no surprise that the polyamorous, homoerotic relationship of Challengers remains so compelling throughout its lengthy runtime. From the moment Art and Patrick lay eyes on Tashi at the US Open as naïve 18-year-olds, they are instantly entranced by her vibrant passion and charm, locking their eyes on her side of the court while everyone else’s heads follow the ball. Later that evening, they are astonished to discover that she has accepted their invitation to their hotel room, and even more surprised when their truncated threesome brings their latent bisexuality to light. Whoever wins the junior singles final the next day will have her number, she promises in the aftermath, incidentally driving the first of many wedges between them. Patrick thus claims his prize and begins dating Tashi shortly after, though it is ultimately Art who marries and takes her on as his coach.
Between this fateful meeting in 2006 and their reunion at the Challenger event in 2019, Guadagnino energetically hops between timelines with incredible deftness, intercutting the years of their youth, the week leading up to their final game, and the climactic showdown itself. As a result, this rich formal structure uncovers hidden signifiers and motivations in Art and Patrick’s decisive match, from a subtle shift in the way Patrick serves the ball to his purposeful double faulting. The editing remains dynamic in the transitions too, gliding across eras through match cuts that seamlessly maintain the narrative’s brisk pacing, and elsewhere shifting between contrasting scenes that bear hidden connections. This is especially evident when Art and Patrick reunite in a steamy sauna before their Challenger game, where Guadagnino breaks up their oddly intimate argument with Tashi and Patrick’s brief liaison eight years earlier. In the years since, Patrick has maintained his fiery passion despite a meagre career while Art has burnt out on professional success, yet both still share a common belief in Tashi as the key to unlocking their true potential.
Old lovers collide through pure accident in flashback, bouncing Josh O’Connors reflection off the window as their paths meet.
As for where Tashi sits relative to this broken brotherhood, Guadagnino’s opening scene paints a perfect picture, symmetrically aligning her with the net as the camera briskly dollies across the court to her position in the dead centre of the crowd. Challengers is not an extraordinarily beautiful film, but in moments like these he works in vivacious flourishes of style to vibrantly match the temperamental dynamic between Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor, as well as Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score of propulsive synths. During a pivotal argument between Tashi and Patrick, Guadagnino volleys his camera between both sides as if watching a game of tennis, and later an even greater breakdown unfolds in the middle of a storm furiously whipping leaves of loose paper around them.
Inventive camerawork offers fresh, invigorating perspectives at tennis matches, sinking the camera beneath the ground in extreme low angles and lifting it up into overhead shots.
Ultimately though, Guadagnino reserves his most invigorating visuals for the court, where Art, Patrick, and Tashi release their frustration through raw, physical power and skill. Between games, the camera will often patiently survey the field through panning and tracking shots, while during rallies we flinch as Guadagnino lets the ball fly right past the lens. By the time the match interlaced throughout Challengers reaches its final sets, he similarly lets it build to a cinematic apex, making for one of the most thrilling games of tennis put to film. Close-ups keenly observe sweat pour off faces and extreme low angles dramatically peer up from beneath the ground itself, but it is the extreme slow-motion photography which most triumphantly imbues this sequence with stylish tension, apprehensively drawing out split-second decisions and reactions. As this tightly edited sequence approaches its climax, Guadagnino uses Tashi as the division in a split screen and even attaches us to the disorientated point-of-view of the ball, throwing us onto the court like another participant in this match.
Tennis may be a relationship according to Tashi, though by capturing both aspects of these characters’ lives with the same primal passion, Guadagnino pushes this metaphor even further – tennis is sex, revelling in the exhilarating union of synchronised bodies and building to an explosive finish. When it comes to matters of carnal expression, who wins and loses is entirely inconsequential, with such concerns only leading to discontentment. For what is otherwise a relatively inexplicit film, Challengers intersects lust, love, and loathing with electrifying sensuality, fulfilling a mutual desire for intimate connection through relentless, heated competition.
Endlessly creative shot choices as Guadagnino ramps up the chaotic tension in the final scene, attaching his camera to the ball’s point-of-view as it ricochets across the court.Sweat drips onto the camera in slow-motion – visceral, carnal imagery.
If award-winning war photographer Lee and her team of journalists are to accurately capture images of Civil War’s dystopian conflict, then it is necessary for them to first detach emotionally from their work. Their job isn’t to intervene, Lee stresses, but merely to chronicle reality so that other people can ask the hard-hitting questions instead.
Frequently when these reporters snap photos on the frontlines, Alex Garland thus cuts away to black-and-white still shots of their subjects, briefly muting the sound design to remove us from the fervour of the moment. At times it is a relief to breathe just for a few seconds, even if we are still being forced to gaze upon brutal executions and massacres. It is exactly in that silence though that a new, unexpected horror comes to light – one which has taken root in supposedly impartial outsiders who try to deny the personal impact of such visceral psychological trauma. Lee’s hardened mental barriers aren’t indestructible, though equally her sensitive protégé Jessie can only take so much of a beating before she sets up similar defences, as Garland sets both on inverse paths towards a self-destructive conflict of human instincts.
Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny lead the film along a pair of inverse character paths, converging at the point of psychological self-destruction.These cutaways to still, black-and-white photos are a superb formal choice with a devastating pay-off, desensitising us to the carnage.Each stop along the odyssey brings its own threats and twists, revealing the sadistic penchant for violence within ordinary Americans.
Even more than Annihilation’s surreal venture into the unknown, Civil War marks Garland’s largest, most ambitious project yet, setting out an odyssey across a future America that has been violently split into loyalist and secessionist states. The world building is remarkable here, covering an enormous scope from the ferocious riots in New York City to the military siege of Washington DC itself, and positioning a tyrannical, three-term President at the centre who sanctions the murder of journalists. Seemingly untouched towns trying to live in blissful ignorance and gas station attendants torturing dissidents in their garage continue to develop this divided America at a ground level too, revealing the lives of civilians desperate to maintain some semblance of normality, and those viciously buying into the carnage.
Nick Offerman’s three-term is only in the film’s opening and closing scenes, but his impact is felt strongly across a divided America.There is a huge scope to Garland’s staging and narrative, set up in establishing shots covering military units, camps, and helicopters – clearly one of his biggest budgets yet.
At the same time though, the history and politics of this civilisation is not Garland’s primary focus. Much to the chagrin of audiences hoping for a hard partisan stance, Civil War purposefully neglects the granular details which might have made pigeonholed this film into a shallow take on left-right ideologies, and in doing so saves us from overly didactic monologues stopping the narrative in its tracks.
The unlikely alliance of California and Texas as the Western Forces only further distances Garland’s war from the United States as it exists today, though not so much that we are totally alienated from his characters. This team of photojournalists may have a better contextual understanding than us, but this information is irrelevant in hostile environments where survival is the only meaningful objective – besides their endeavours to record such scenarios in digital snapshots. Even more protective than their Kevlar vests identifying them as press are the cameras which separate them from reality, imbuing Garland’s disorientating cinematography with a cutting self-awareness. The shallow focus close-ups visually isolate his characters when their PTSD kicks in, though even more unusual are the chromatic aberrations and smeared lens effects reminding us of the prism we are viewing this world through, purposefully distorting our perception to save us from the maddening truth.
Shallow focus close-ups shift us outside the immediate reality, and into Lee’s detached mind.The chromatic aberrations around the edges of the frame are another nice formal choice from Garland, filtering PTSD through a prism.
Garland continues to reveal an uncanny beauty in scenes of Lee’s team driving through blazing forest fires while sparks fall around them in slow-motion, but when he does let the horrors of Civil War unfold in a full view, it is easy to see why such filters are so necessary. The bloodshed is often visceral and downright shocking, grotesquely revealed in one particularly disturbing overhead shot of Jessie crawling out from a mass grave of white, bloodied corpses, and marking each episode in this cross-country journey with its own unique threat. Apocalypse Now is evidently a key influence here, as Garland lets its carnivalesque chaos emerge in the depressing sight of a derelict Christmas fair hosting a shootout between enemy snipers to the depressing sound of ‘Jingle Bells.’ Unsure of which side is which, Lee questions the nearest combatants, and the response she receives is eerily evocative of the insanity at Do Lung Bridge.
“No one’s giving us orders man. Someone’s trying to kill us. We’re trying to kill them.”
Lens flares and slow-motion as the crew drive through a forest fire – an unearthly beauty tainted by the traumatic stench of death.
Whatever deeply held convictions instigated this war have officially lost all meaning to those merely fighting to stay alive, and perhaps the same could even be said for those soldiers simply seeking excuses to indulge their most sadistic desires, represented in Jesse Plemons’ unnerving ultranationalist. As strong as Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny are in the two lead roles, he very nearly steals the entire film as the militant in red-tinted sunglasses who captures their entire crew at gunpoint, suspensefully toying with them in his deadpan voice. If Robert Duvall’s Colonel Kilgore was the standout minor character in Apocalypse Now, then Plemons is the memorable equivalent in Civil War, playing a character who rests his entire life’s purpose upon the barbaric conquest of dehumanised enemies.
Jesse Plemons may very well steal the film with his deadpan sadism, playing easily the most terrifying character of the film.
Lee may claim to be desensitised, even suggesting that she would capture the death of her colleagues on camera if she found herself in such a situation, but she at the very least retains a humanity which so many others have clearly lost. By the time she arrives in Washington DC, Dunst has very much earned the major character shift that sees her break under pressure, yet still find the capacity for a rejuvenated selflessness. Not only this, but the cutaways to her team’s photographs throughout Civil War intersect her story arc here with formal aplomb, playing out a crucial turning point in an otherwise bombastic final set piece through a montage of silent, black-and-white stills. Remote objectivity is an impossible standard for any human to uphold in the face of severe trauma, yet after all we have witnessed in Garland’s gruelling wartime odyssey, the prospect of cynically detaching through media’s distancing filter regrettably looks a whole lot more appealing than the alternative.
Throughout the first two acts of Monkey Man, the only manifestations of the Kid’s childhood trauma come through splintered flashbacks, aggressively piercing the mental barrier he has placed between the past and present. They are just as disorientating as they are potent, triggering intense feelings of rage and grief at the sight of a familiar ring, or otherwise overcoming him with peace as he recalls the stories of Hindu gods his mother once read. Dev Patel’s handheld camerawork leans heavily into close-ups in these interludes, hazily singling out key details that have ingrained themselves in the Kid’s psyche, and yet which he must keep some emotional distance from if he is to exact clean vengeance against those responsible for his physical and psychological scars.
The fine control that Patel exerts over the non-linear structure of Monkey Man is an impressive feat for any first-time filmmaker, though the time he has spent acting under great directors such as Danny Boyle and David Lowery has no doubted imparted valuable lessons. Repeated images of corrupt police chief Rana Singh silhouetted against a burning village irrevocably binds the Kid to his fearsome nemesis, just as the recurring image of Hanuman the Monkey God is linked to the Kid himself, setting him on a spiritual journey from bloodthirsty retribution towards cathartic enlightenment.
Fragments of the past aggressively pierce the Kid’s psyche, binding him to feelings of fear, anger, and grief through sheer formal repetition.Flashbacks often play out in extreme close-ups, offering both intimacy and a hazy disorientation.
The gorilla mask that the Kid wears as an underground fighter in the Tiger’s Temple may be the clearest representation of this, though when he opens a rift in his chest during a hallucinatory, spiritual awakening, Patel even more specifically evokes the iconography of Hanuman revealing his heartfelt devotion to gods Rama and Sita. Patel is wise to choose this moment as the reveal of the Kid’s full backstory, transcending mere exposition by marking it as a crucial turning point in his arc, and thus allowing him to stare his trauma in its face rather than let its intrusive fragments domineer him. All those shards of stray memories thus congeal into a pitiful portrait of corruption in modern-day India, recognising the Kid as a nameless avenger of not just his own family, but an entire caste of society that has been crushed by political oppressors.
Incredibly creative use of Hanuman the Monkey God as a symbol of the Kid’s journey, calling upon the imagery of him tearing open his chest.For what is essentially a Hollywood action film, Patel’s work is extraordinarily spiritual, and in deep conversation with Hinduism’s core tenets.
The towering brothel that the Kid infiltrates to reach Rana becomes a magnificent metaphor for this ascension too, with each floor signifying distinct levels in a rigidly segmented social hierarchy, and respectively bringing our hero closer to shattering the fascistic branch of Hindu nationalism his archenemy serves. This movement is not to be confused with Hinduism as a religion, Patel is careful to illustrate, especially when the Kid aligns himself with a deeply spiritual community of Hijra – a third gender originating in India thousands of years ago, encompassing individuals who may be transgender, intersex, or eunuchs. Hinduism is an intricate belief system interlocked with an equally complex political landscape, and so it is a testament to Patel’s visual storytelling that both are weaved with such nuance into Monkey Man’s vibrantly textured setting, offering tangible stakes to the Kid’s brutal conquest of evil.
Endless creativity in the action set pieces much like John Wick, using a leaky aquarium as an obstacle that both combatants must contend with in a bathroom fight.The camera often rotates in overhead shots, taking a gods-eye view of the Kid’s retribution and enlightenment.
Of course, a great deal of this also comes down to the sheer creativity and practicality of the visuals, destabilising the Kid’s world with overhead shots, canted angles, and slow-motion sequences. The settings are often as dynamically engaged with the action as the actors themselves, imposing obstacles such as a large aquarium slowly flooding a bathroom, and offering an array of improvised weapons in a kitchen where stoves, microwaves, and knives are wielded with gruesome resourcefulness. While Patel keeps up an expeditious pace in his editing throughout Monkey Man, he also knows when to let his camera hold on longer takes and let his hand-to-hand fight choreography shine through, made all the more impressive by his dedication to performing his own stunts.
The Tiger’s Temple makes for a magnificent visual set piece, filtering a dirty golden light through the thick, humid air and often playing out the action in slow-motion.The strip club inside the tower is defined by its soft purple tones, stylistically elevated above the lower-class levels below.Emergency lights flood the elevator with red, heralding a climactic finale.
Patel’s direction continues to shine in his lighting’s vivid distinction of each location too, separating the humid, yellow atmosphere of the Tiger’s Temple from the dim purple ambience of a high-end strip club, and eventually even drenching the Kid in crimson as the tower elevator takes him to the end of his journey. There at the top, Diwali fireworks and an earthy red painting of Hanuman reigning over a battlefield become auspicious backdrops to his final confrontation, effectively rendering the Kid as a modern avatar of the Monkey God meeting his destiny. It is a rare thing to witness a first-time director meld such handsomely stylised visuals with mystical symbolism, yet by its marvellous conclusion Monkey Man has thoroughly proven Patel to be just as adept behind the camera as he is in front of it, crafting a Hindu allegory that envisions the righteous delivery of divine, cosmic justice upon India’s corrupt political landscape.
Hanuman makes one last appearance in the final scene, bringing the Kid’s journey full circle back to the Hindu myths that once inspired him.
From the bottom of a chasm residing on the outskirts of Rose Glass’ rustic Southern town, a rotten stench is bleeding out. Dark secrets have been decaying down there for years, eating away at those who either willingly or reluctantly shroud them in silence, as well as those who tragically fall into their orbit. For vagrant body builder Jackie, fate seems especially intent on pulling her into these shady circles, both through her burgeoning relationship with local gym manager Lou as well as the casual job she incidentally picks up at the shooting range owned by her father, Lou Sr. As she pursues physical perfection in anticipation of an upcoming bodybuilding contest, Lou is right by her side supplying performance-enhancing steroids, unknowingly feeding an addiction that soon uncontrollably careens into a seedy underworld of treachery and murder.
Much like Glass’ debut, Love Lies Bleeding does not shy away from the eerie dread and murky morality of its female characters, though this erotic thriller sprawls much further out than Saint Maud’s introspective character study. Gone are the formal notes of Roman Polanski and Paul Schrader, here replaced with the rural noir influence of the Coen Brothers as bodies stack up in the sordid backwaters of America, and amateurs clumsily try to cover up their tracks. Gyms and streets alike are dimly lit with a grimy green ambience, suffusing this 80s landscape of spandex, baggy shirts, and shaggy hairstyles with an air of suburban decrepitude. There are few options in life for queer locals like Lou who dwell far outside the mainstream, but with a violent, paternalistic chauvinism rearing its ugly head, even those who seek the stability of traditional marriage are destined to be severely disappointed.
Glass’ dingy lighting contributes enormously to this decrepit setting, calling back to Coen Brothers films like Blood Simple with the rural noir aesthetic.The chasm is an eerie metaphor for dark secrets lying just outside town, as its use passes from the hands of one generation to the next.
Sporting a greasy mullet and gaunt cheekbones, Kristen Stewart’s brooding screen persona is an ideal match for Glass’ shabby town, taking on its muted bleakness even as she fights its corruptive influence. Amusingly enough, this internal battle is frequently distilled down to her ironic habit of smoking while she actively listens to anti-smoking audiobooks, revealing a weakness for addiction that she will inevitably pass on to her new girlfriend. Very gradually, we witness Lou’s steroids taking fearsome effect on Jackie, eroding her impulse control and mounting a rage in her that can only be contained for so long.
Two powerful leading female performances from Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brien, bearing the physical and mental strain of the crimes they have been caught up in.
On a physical level, Jackie’s metamorphosis is rendered as visceral body horror akin to Requiem for a Dream, acutely observing needles pierce bare skin and muscles ripple, bulge, and stretch in grotesque formal cutaways. Given Glass’ team-up with Darren Aronofsky’s regular composer Clint Mansell, it is a fitting creative choice too, as the synth-heavy score pounds and reverberates throughout the film with ominous trepidation of what may come from Jackie’s monstrous transformation. From there, Glass oversees a descent into drug-fuelled hallucinations that only aggravate her insecurities, yet also push her to inhuman limits.
O’Brien’s ripped physique is astounding, especially in those body horror cutaways that see her muscles bulge and morph beneath her skin.
As for Lou, there is no denying the creature she has accidentally created, especially since it has partially arisen from the demons she has been fighting for years. Red-drenched dreams of her past haunt her in menacing cutaways, surfacing memories of Lou Sr’s illegal schemes that she was once shamefully complicit in. Even outside these visions, Glass continues to rupture the green and yellow ambience of this town with hints of crimson lighting, in one scene harshly bouncing it off Lou Sr’s face from a nearby vending machine and snapping Lou’s nightmare into vivid reality. Although both father and daughter are mirrors of each other in this battle of wits and violence, it is clear to see who is purely driven by self-preservation, and who is fighting for love. While Lou Sr’s crimes have been ambiguously responsible for the unexplained disappearance of his wife, Lou is determined to keep Jackie from slipping away, and instead actively endeavours to pull her back from the brink of destruction.
Nightmares drenched in red, visualising Lou’s PTSD with an unsettling aggression.Glass’ overhead shots bring a sense of eerie surveillance to her lonely rural town, tracing the movements of cars through dark streets.
True to her Coen Brothers influence, the dark humour which underlies Glass’ chaotic sequence of events colours in the setting with a wry cynicism, seeing fellow lesbian and comic relief Daisy threaten to derail Lou’s plans. Beneath her naïve optimism is a childish penchant for manipulation, seeking little more than her own self-satisfaction while remaining wilfully ignorant to the danger quietly gathering around her.
When Love Lies Bleeding approaches its climactic ending, Glass finally ratchets the absurdity up one last time to the point of inhuman surrealism, formally uniting Jackie’s physical and emotional transformation through a colossal symbol of feminine power. Much like the last scene of Saint Maud, this daring resolution fully departs from the material world and lifts us into the distorted psyche of Glass’ characters, albeit through freakish imagery that is far more likely to provoke laughs of disbelief than chills. The brief epilogue which follows doesn’t quite maintain the same brilliance, yet still can’t take entirely away from the grand culmination of Love Lies Bleeding’s collision of narrative arcs. Only through selfless acts of faith and sacrifice can Lou and Jackie uncover hidden reserves of strength that have laid dormant through years of loneliness, nourishing an unconventional love that seeks to rise above the miserable, moral degradation of a society that never truly cared for them.
Love Lies Bleeding is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, Amazon, and Google Play.
“Power over Spice is power over all,” chants an unseen Sardauker priest in the opening prologue of Dune: Part Two, though what exactly that signifies varies drastically depending on who wields it. For the native Fremen, Spice is a key component of everyday products, while its value as the rarest commodity in the universe guarantees wealth and status to whichever Great House rules Arrakis. As for Paul Atreides, its implications are far more mystical. It is through Spice that he is granted the prescience to see himself leading a Holy War as a Messiah destined to lead the Fremen towards liberation, as well as the means through which he may control an even greater resource – the zealous faith of millions.
As tremendous as Denis Villeneuve’s epic achievement was in the first instalment of Dune, it is clear with the context of Part Two just how much of that was simply setting up Paul’s subverted monomyth, where we witness his evolution into one of cinema’s great antiheroes. Lawrence of Arabia is the clearest comparison to draw given its challenging of a ‘white saviour’ who leads foreign civilisations through unforgiving deserts and into battle, though The Lord of the Rings trilogy seems more fitting. When entering production, both Peter Jackson and Villeneuve were respectively met with the obstacle of adapting ‘unfilmable’ material, but with sharpened instincts for strong visual storytelling and a recognition that such expansive narratives cannot be confined to a single movie, both also defied the scepticism of critics.
Extraordinary world building in Villeneuve’s grand establishing shots, capturing masses arranged in formations across otherworldly scenery.
To draw the similarities closer, the foundations of these grand narratives are rooted even deeper than Frank Herbert or J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing. These are stories of theological significance, interrogating notions of spirituality through symbols of prophecies, resurrections, and salvation, especially with Dune framing Paul as a saviour descended from the skies of Arrakis to cleanse the world – or the universe – of evil.
Timothee Chalamet’s return in this role only continues to prove why he is one of the most promising actors of his generation as well, mirroring Anakin Skywalker’s descent into darkness, though with a far firmer grip on his character than Hayden Christensen. Beautifully fragmented dreams of the war and starvation he will wreak haunt him in ethereal slow-motion, cautioning against his journeying south, and yet the pull of fate eventually proves to be too strong. By the time he is standing upon platforms and delivering rousing speeches to followers and enemies, his voice has shifted down to a deeper, gravelly register not unlike the Baron’s, and he exudes a megalomania that leads us to mourn the humbler Paul we met in Part One.
Both Dune films are magnificent achievements for Timothee Chalamet, but it is especially in this second part that he flexes his villainous screen presence and range, becoming one of cinema’s great antiheroes.Fragments of dreams haunt Paul with unsettling prescience, envisioning a Holy War that will lead to starvation and suffering across the universe,
Villeneuve’s build to this apotheosis is carefully paced in Part Two, confronting Paul with a series of challenges he must complete to meet his destiny. The iconic sandworm ride arrives about an hour into the film as his first major milestone, and Villeneuve doesn’t waste its potential as a defining moment of his directing career, anxiously building anticipation as currents of sand ripple through the desert like waves before it is kicked up into a furious, dusty tempest. The lack of detail in Herbert’s book around how one rides these sandworms gives Villeneuve the freedom to creatively imagine the act with hooks and ropes, bringing a tactility to the scene that is magnified by the camera’s immersion in the thick of the action, while only occasionally cutting back to the Fremen who distantly watch in reverent awe. The guerilla warfare Paul wages with them against invading Harkonnen forces similarly gives shape to their customs and practices, as even with limited resources, their stealthy manipulation of the natural terrain allows them to easily overpower their armoured enemies.
Villeneuve imagines Paul’s sandworm ride with ropes and hooks, immersing us in the thick of the sandstorm it kicks up and building to a magnificent climax.
Freed from Part One’s pressure of setting up this epic narrative, it is clear in instances like these that Villeneuve feels more comfortable experimenting with a greater sense of visual wonder and terror. Silhouettes set against blinding white landscapes and close-ups of Spice glistening upon the sand are carried over here from the first film, while the burnt orange magic hour lighting calls back to the radiation polluted Los Angeles of Blade Runer 2049, yet Dune: Part Two especially excels when it begins exploring more far-flung lands. The fundamentalists who live in the south of Arrakis are acutely distinguished from their northern counterparts, not only by their barren plains of dark rock, but Villeneuve also captures their culture of devout worship in a dazzling overhead shot that loses their Paul in a sea of pale headdresses.
The burnt orange light of a rising and setting sun is diffused through the dusty air of Arrakis.The south of Arrakis is distinguished from the north by its dark, barren plains, and a fundamentalist culture of zealots ready to exalt Paul as their saviour.Villeneuve composes an astonishing birds-eye view of Paul wandering into a crowd of worshippers, lost among the pale scarves adorning their heads.
Even more astonishing though is our extended stay on Giedi Prime, home of House Harkonnen, whose desaturated exteriors are as splendidly severe as their brutalist interior architecture. Where Arrakis’ skies are distinguished by their double-eclipsed, crescent sun, here the land is cast under a black sun, absorbing any colour that falls beneath its rays. Cinematographer Greig Fraser’s decision to shoot these scenes with a black-and-white infrared camera accomplishes an eerie monochrome aesthetic, and stylistically sets the austere tone for the psychopathic, reptilian Feyd-Rautha, youngest nephew of the Baron. Within the gladiator arena filled with bloodthirsty spectators, he viciously slaughters a trio of survivors from House Atreides for his birthday celebration, and from there is effectively set up by the Bene Gesserit sisterhood as a foil for Paul in contest over the sovereignty of Arrakis.
Arrakis’ crescent sun double eclipsed by two moons is visually inspired by the twin suns of Tattooine in Star Wars – a full circle moment considering the influence that the novel Dune had on George Lucas.A breathtaking sequence on Giedi Prime beneath their Black Sun, shot with black-and-white infrared cameras that drain the exterior scenery of colour and life.
After playing Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic, Austin Butler couldn’t have chosen a more different character to follow that up with than Feyd-Rautha, stripping away his natural charisma and replacing it with pure derangement. He stands among the strongest of the supporting cast, right next to Rebecca Ferguson whose dark journey as Lady Jessica in Part Two mirrors Paul’s Messianic ascension, and Javier Bardem whose comic beats as Stilgar miraculously do not hamper the weight of Villeneuve’s drama. Zendaya meanwhile leaves slightly less of an impression as Chani, though it is Christopher Walken who delivers the weakest performance of the lot, lacking the presence needed to play the Emperor.
Rebecca Ferguson is not in as much of Dune: Part Two as the first film, and yet her performance continues to evolve in menacing directions, spurring Paul on towards his destiny.Austin Butler is a new addition to the cast as Feyd-Rautha – pale, hairless, and utterly terrifying as a foil to Paul.
Still, each of these parts play an integral role in Villeneuve’s strategic manoeuvring of his pieces towards a roaring climax, supplemented by a score from Hans Zimmer that intrepidly builds on the war cries and blaring electronic orchestrations from Part One. As the Emperor’s enormous ship drifts over Arrakis, Villeneuve’s low angle anxiously gazes up at its metallic underside distorting reflections of the mountains below like an ominous warning of colonial subjugation, and leads into an explosive battle which has us questioning Dune’s hazy divide between good and evil. So brilliant is Villeneuve’s direction here though that the smaller-scale duel which follows can’t help but feel like a step down in stakes, and perhaps would have been better positioned earlier as part of the rising tension.
Spectacular action between the Fremen and the Emperor’s forces, as Villeneuve manoeuvres his pieces with tactical shrewdness towards a predestined confrontation.Paul’s duel against Feyd-Rautha does not have the same weight as the battle which preceded it, but it is still worth appreciating these still frames of their silhouettes set against a rising sun.
If the Dune series is to end here with a gutting fulfilment of Paul’s hero’s journey, then it would at least be a complete story unto itself, though Villeneuve’s teasing of Dune Messiah certainly remains a tantalising prospect. His ability to build on existing science-fiction material was already evident in Blade Runner 2049, and now his work committing Herbert’s unfathomably vast imagination to film additionally demonstrates his own, pushing the limits of big-budget spectacle to extraordinary lengths. When it comes to fully realising its elemental iconography and grand narrative on a cinema screen, Dune’s insurmountable parable of fanatical hubris deserves nothing less.
