Review of Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) by Simon T — 05 Jul 2016

Jodorowsky's Dune is one of the most fascinating stories in film development history without a doubt. With this documentary, much of the creative process and visual backbone for the film is fleshed out in gorgeous detail, with the viewer getting a fascinating, frustrating and inspiring look at one of the film and art industry's most enigmatic, bold and arrogant personalities.

The results for the viewer are fairly excellent, properly outlining the pure creative value of what was made while highlighting the genius and insanity of what Jodorowsky attempted and failed to accomplish.

The film properly expresses the depth and breadth of Jodorowsky's incredible vision while also outlining how his arrogance and lack of respect for the source material ultimately sunk the project. While Jodorowsky's completed work may have been visually striking, the film clearly illustrates just how little of the heart of the Dune story Jodorowsky actually latched on to.

Ultimately Jodorowsky's Dune is the story of a brilliant, eccentric and aimless director who, as Amanda Lear suggested, may have been more jealous of Herbert's creation of Dune than he was passionate about adapting the work properly.

Where the documentary stumbles is in it's clear admiration for Jodorowsky and what he perceives to be his achievements. Despite failing to bring together a coherent film and despite producing little public work, mostly displayed in the film as black and white comics (much of which is contained in a book of which only two copies exist apparently), Jodorowsky and Pavich are somehow under the impression that Jodorowsky is a driving force behind much of modern science fiction.

Little credit in the film is given to the artists and designers, probably the most influential members of the team, nor to Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg and Scott, early progenitors of the genre who had produced groundbreaking work before, during and after Jodorowsky's failed attempt.

Many of the proposed progenitor type relationships are composed of unclear black and white rough sketches that prove little. Where clear similarity does exist, it is almost entirely in regards to the work of Giger and others, who have demonstrated clear styles entirely independent of Jodorowsky's influence and who went on to work directly with the films in question, creating a correlation/causation problem in addition to a cart before the horse issue that is never really addressed.

With this in mind, one must wonder if Jodorowsky deserves the credit or if he was merely the lucky man to bumble all of his "spiritual warriors" into proximity with Dune, a world famous novel they had surely already encountered or would have shortly.

The critiques leveled against many of the previously mentioned directors as well as the relatively minimal time spent on the truly incredible minds of Giger and others serve only to highlight Jodorowsky's arrogance and clear sense of self importance.

Although his excitement and vision is infectious, the film ends on a low note because it can't bring itself back to the place where good documentaries belong, on the outside looking in on the entire frame of reference.