The legend of "Jodorowsky's DUNE" [Mizumaru Kawahara's CINEMONOLOGUE Vol.63]

Index

• The man who tried to visualize spice-induced hallucinations
• As the home of creators
• A legend because it didn't come true

The man who tried to visualize spice-induced hallucinations

Director Denis Villeneuve's ` `Dune '' has finally been released, but when I think of ``Dune'', what comes to my mind is a documentary that explores the details of the film project that never materialized. It's ``Jodorowsky's DUNE.'' Anyway, I was so impressed by this work that I started reading the original work.

Alejandro Jodorowsky, an eccentric film director from Chile, began adapting Frank Herbert's novel ` `Dune' ' into a film, and although it was planned to be an unprecedented science fiction blockbuster, it eventually became too large. The circumstances surrounding the movie's final cancellation and its impact were revealed by Jodorowsky himself, producer Michel Seydoux, other people involved, and subsequent filmmakers and critics. Told.

All of the canceled projects are contained in a huge book that Jodorowsky and Seydoux created to sell to film companies. The book, which is so thick you could almost call it a block, is a valuable item that is one of only a handful in this universe. By the way, that book is also scheduled to be auctioned at Christie's soon (as of mid-November 2021). A truly magical film is in this book, and according to the documentary, Nicolas Winding Refn, the director of Drive and The Neon Demon , was shown this book all night and listened to the contents narrated by Jodorowsky himself. He called himself ``the only person to have seen'' Jodorowsky's Dune.''

The charm of the original work is endless, with its magnificent worldview, clear depiction of alien culture, and detailed settings, and even though it failed, it is still a story of a movie that was planned with the same grandeur as the original work. Although it's fun, this documentary still draws you in through Jodorowsky's own narration. Not only does his body language fill the screen, but his eyes sparkle (sometimes even glaring) and he speaks with rapt attention, sometimes interspersed with onomatopoeia, making him look like a young boy boasting about something he loves. A large number of his friends gathered around him for the project of ``Dune,'' and you can tell from the screen that he has the power to captivate people. Documentaries often tend to have a bland tone, but the fact that they never become boring is not only due to the quality of the content, but also to Jodorowsky's character.

At the center of the original story is a spice called melange, which is essentially a drug. Melange, which can expand consciousness, not only extends life and gives superhuman abilities, but is also necessary for space navigation, and is an important resource in the universe, but the only place that can produce it is in the desert. It was the planet Arrakis, commonly known as Dune. The story depicts the rise of the protagonist, a savior, in the struggle for supremacy over this planet.

This work is in line with the psychedelic drug culture of the 1960s, and Jodorowsky, of course, focused on the efficacy of melange and its spiritual world. It seems that he even tried to recreate the ``visual LSD experience,'' but from what he says, this project was different from other Dune film projects, and had an important connection to Jodorowsky personally. That's why you can feel his regret at the end of the incident.

As the home of creators