Villeneuve unleashes the full breadth of his seismic vision in Dune: Part Two. Unlike its at times leaden predecessor, the images achieve a nightmarish, poetic beauty that carries the narrative. Part Two has a lyrical potency in its oppressive scale. 

The rhythms feel hypotonic. Early on, there’s a floating POV shot going into the Fremen caves. The rocky ridges have a surreal quality. Lulling the audience into a dreamlike state (dreams are messages from the deep). The caves are half illuminated, half plunged in darkness. A visual scheme to echo Paul’s dangling fate. Cut to, Paul, walking towards his destiny, looking up at the caves. Villeneuve’s collapsing our perspective with Paul’s through subliminal cutting. 

Paul’s journey has a simple and impactful metaphoric spine. His refusal to, “go South”. It gives the narrative this crystal clear purpose. The South stands in for going down, hell, a place that will unleash Paul’s worst nightmares. Or for heading as deep as possible into his subconscious to control his future. There is an elemental, Freudian aspect to the story. Paul must do what no man ever has. He has to subsume into the matriarchy to achieve his greatest potential. Made all the more interesting by Feyd, whose right of age has him having sex with allegorical mommy (Margot Fenrig). 

The matriarchal angle, the Bene Gesserit, provides Dune Two with a strong thematic anchor. Religion as a means of control and oppression. Bene Gesserit tentacles are everywhere (Irulan; the reverend mother on Arrakis). Creating a system and then manipulating it to their advantage. Paul, their manufactured chosen one, doing the same. Prophecies mere tools to carve the path to power. 

When the Bene Gesserit walk onto Geidi Prime, their dark cloaks shift to white. A great visual follow-through on the black sun premise. In general, the aesthetics this go around are trippier and more haunting. When Paul envisions waves crashing into the desert. The opening Harkonnen attack, troopers floating up a rock face, neon orange casting all over. Harvesting the water for life from a worm. Paul on a dune, black and white lighting on either side. Later, in the gladiator arena, an almost identical top-down composition of Feyd, Paul’s thematic doppelgänger. Part Two is one striking moment after another. 

I mean, every shot of the fetus is so wonderful as a primordial Rorschach. It’s the kind of insanity these movies need. A talking fetus! That baby of course recalls 2001. One of several references to big-name directors. Lynch/Blue Velvet, with the Baron’s ant-infested ear. And Coppola/Apocalypse Now. IMAX frame-spanning helicopters in the air. War as a violent hallucination. Part Two riffs on legendary cinema to create its own timeless iconography. 

The editing is at times quite conceptual. Drug-induced in its cadence. There is an amazing sequence where it cuts from fetus Alia to an epic star system vista, to Paul and Chani having sex. To go from the baby to the cosmic to the act that makes a baby. Rather ephemeral and experimental for big-budget sci-fi. 

Part One and Part Two’s structural bifurcation makes more sense now, too. It’s a prophecy/actualization split. The second chapter recontextualizes Part One, making each other more interesting. Fragments from Part One recur. A snippet from Part One’s prologue reappears. Paul’s vision fighting the Sardaukar returns, with Chani in his place. Both films end in knife battles. In the first movie, it seemed Paul summoned the Bene Gesserit from his dreams. Feyd likewise tells Fenrig he was dreaming of the Bene Gesserit the night before. Fenrig leads Feyd into a circular, psychological space, puts the needle to his neck, and isters the Gom Jabbar. Paul also took that test surrounded by a symbolic motif of infinite circles. The sense of déjà vu is subtly disorienting.

To be sure, some inelegance prevents D: PT from ascending to the highest level. Anything that isn’t montage or spectacle can come across as functional or perfunctory. Too many shallow depth-of-field closeups cutting amongst themselves none of which feature anything interesting to look at. Contemplative cinema leaving you nothing to contemplate. Large canvass sci-fi without a conceptual hook. A feast for the eyes serving the same course eight times over (BIG!!!). Severity strained to the point of bursting a blood vessel. Deadening in its one-note pummelling. Etc., etc., etc.
All of this, to varying degrees, is true.

And yet, none of it matters. This is a work of near-pure cinematic immersion. The screen dissipates. Sights and a soundscape beamed directly into your mind’s eye. No filter. The world-building never falters. The sense of overwhelming verisimilitude never cracks. No point at which you question the reality of what you see before you. Dune: Part Two seems totemic and true in its realization. Maybe Villeneuve’s greatest artistic achievement. A new science fiction classic is born.