Jodorowsky's Dune

Alejandro Jodorowsky earned a well-deserved reputation in the early '70's as a transgressive director with a surrealistic bent, notably through his films "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain". In 1974 he acquired the rights to film Frank Herbert's "Dune" and collected a team of creative "spiritual warriors" to film what he predicted would be a hallucination without LSD.

The film was never made, but enough artifacts (extensive storyboards, illustrations, anecdotes, etc) survived that the production became legendary as the greatest film that has never been made). It has even outshone productions that were made, including David Lynch's version and the TV mini-series from a few years back.

The doc tells the story of the film, mostly from Jodorowsky's own perspective, but includes the contributions of collaborators like Chris Foss, HR Giger, and Dan O'Bannon; critics and modern directors.

The film is interesting and mildly entertaining but it's a film made by and for fanboys. There isn't a single opposing or contrasting view presented.

While Jodorowsky is clearly an inventive film-maker, his talent may have had more to do with finding the right collaborators than from any profound understanding of the novel (in fact, many of the people involved had never read it). The people he worked with were well-established and their work on the film reflected their body of work rather than a specific response to the material.

When the production crashed and burned (the studios were impressed by the craft that had been demonstrated, but balked at the cost and commercial viability), the collaborators went their separate ways, although some of the designs for the film did get incorporated in other productions like the Alien series (Giger, Moebius, O'Bannon and Foss were all involved in the first film).

Jodorowsky offers some commentary on the Lynch version, expressing his joy that it was a failure. What he doesn't recognize is that the Lynch film made similar decisions to his take on the story (for example, odd casting choices like Mick Jagger in the first film; Sting in the second). If his film had been made, I suspect that the end result would have been the same. A different failure but a failure nonetheless).

The definitive production of "Dune" has yet to be made. Given the scope of the novel, long-form television is likely the only reasonable option.

"Jodorowsky's Dune" is a curiosity, a footnote in film history. I imagine that it will end up on Space at some point. Wait for it then.