Review of Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) by Robert S — 13 Jun 2014

I'm a bit of a movie snob so I'm ashamed to say that, before I saw this one, I'd never heard of Alejandro Jodorowsky, the great Jewish-Ukranian Chilean-French avante garde filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, musician, comics writer, and spiritual guru; in short, a true renaissance man I'dnever heard of. In 1975, long before the astonishing special effects directors have in their arsenals now. Jodorowsky acquired the film rights to Frank Herbert's epic 1965 sci-fo novel "Dune" and set about making a masterpiece that was to be the equal of any of the classic works of the great directors of film history. It was a film so many decades ahead of it's time that the studio that owned the film rights GAVE them to Jodorowsky's team, confident it was unfilmable in 1975.

Did you see "Dune" staring Kier Dullea in 1984? Well, that ain't Jodorowsky's, it's David Lynch's. Why? Because, in one of the great tragedies in cinema history, his version never got made, for the want of a measley $5 million, the cost of a single actor or one special-effect scene today. It was also designed by Jodorowsky, to be 14-hours long, making the job of the film editor mission impossible. Here's a lineup of the mega-stars he signed up for it: Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, Salvador Dali, and David Carradine. He got Dali to work for 100 grand a minute, after figuring his screen time would be only 5 minutes. Original music was to be composed by Pink Floyd, among others. What a shame.

This documentary on the "Dune" that never got made is not only highly-entertaining (Jodorowsky is still handsome and charismatic at 84), it's also very compelling filmmaking in its own right, every bit the equal of its subject's creative talents. It was great fun to see the director's son, Brontis, at 12, as the central character in "Dune" and all- grown up, at 51, sitting next to his dad for the final interview.

The good news is the revival of interest in his unfilmed "Dune" inspired Jodowarsky to make another film, with his original "Dune" partner, Michael Sedeoux. It's called "The Dance of Reality," it stars Alejandro, of course (it's autobiographical), but his grown son Brontis is in it, too, and it's making the rounds of art film theaters now. I'm going to see it in Denver tomorrow.