Dune: Part Two, the bombastic sci-fi sequel from resident perfectionist Denis Villeneuve, saw an impressive opening weekend raking in $182.5 million at the global box office.
The film’s gargantuan technical achievements speak for themselves, but by getting caught up in the sand-dusted spectacle, one risks missing out on some of the subtler details of Villeneuve’s epic hit. During a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the filmmaker called to attention an especially interesting detail regarding the film’s use of the Fremen language.
“There was like a whole poetry and whole inner logic to the language. For example, when Zendaya says at one point to Stellan Skarsgård, her character Chani says to Skarsgård, ‘you are crazy, you’re insane.’ She says ‘you’re insane.’ But the way she says it in Fremen language is ‘you’re drinking sand.’ That of course for a Fremen, is the ultimate madness.”
Of course, anyone familiar with the ins and outs of linguistics knows that language systems almost never allow a one-to-one translation from one to another, and it would have taken the Emperor of Dune fandom to have noticed such a thing while watching Dune: Part Two. Nevertheless, the fact that Villeneuve seems to have added the detail of “roughly translated subtitles” into his Part Two checklist shows a uniquely incredible dedication to the filmmaking craft here, and we now await the brave soul who will sit through the film, English-to-Fremen dictionary in hand, and proceed to offer up the more raw edition of such subtitles.
And for a guy who apparently hates dialogue, Villeneuve seems to have had a lot of fun with it here.
Dune: Part Two is now playing in theaters.
(featured image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
