Why the Oscar Desaite the Best Director of Dune 2 is a crime against science fiction cinema

The nominations for best director in the Academy awards have always been a big problem. This category helps to highlight some of the best artistic minds in the industry, especially those that have repeatedly demonstrated dominance over their trade. Take a look at the nominations for the best director of last year: Christopher Nolan (“Oppenheimer”), Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Justine Triet (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things “) and Jonathan Glazer (” The Zone of Interest “). While Nolan’s eventual victory for “Oppenheimer” was more than deserved, any other entry within this category underlines a strong spirit of direction, without which their respective film visions would have been impossible.

This year’s nominations for the best director in the 97th edition of the Academy Awards also highlight star directors: Sean Baker for “Anora”, Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist”, James Mangold for “A Complete Unknown”, Coralie Fargeat By “The Substance” and Jacques Audiard by “Emilia Pérez” (you can check the complete list of nominated here). However, here is a great void in the form of Denis Villeneuve, who this year gave us an epic and broad continuation of his 2021 “Dune” film. “Dune: Part Two” exceeded several box office milestones after its launch in March 2024, and the taste continued to flow for a long time while obtaining positive reactions from both critics and the public. Even if we ignore its performance in the Financial Front, the second installment of the “Dune” saga is nothing less than a film triumph: a love work that has paid off.

Although “Dune: Part Two” obtained five nominations (including Best Film, Photography and Sound), the Better Director bitesEspecially if one takes into account that Villeneuve was not nominated in the category for his work in his previous “Dune”.

While “Dune” had already demonstrated Villeneuve’s sincere love for Frank Herbert’s saga, “Part Two” consolidates this feeling and creates a wide space for the director’s own sensitivity to flourish. The first film moves deliberately to sit an immovable base that roots us, while its sequel unravels the throbbing part of the science fiction drama with the gradual “ascension” of Paul Domerides (Timothée Chalamet) to the status of Messiah. This is not easy to achieve, considering how extensive and dense is Herbert’s series of novels, with a thousand political machinations that orbit around the difficult situation of Arrakis and the fall (and rebirth) of the dareides house. Villeneuve captures these nuances while focusing on what matters most: Paul’s stratified interiority and how women in their lives shape their worldview.

Of course, the term “show” is integrated into the vocabulary of “Dune” and its known universe, since the events do not cover a planet, but the entire galaxy. Glimpses of this are spread everywhere like crumbs, preparing the Holy War on a large scale that will change everything in the next “Dune: Messiah”. In addition, striking moments and that transmit scale, such as the domain of Paul of the Shai-Hulud (sand worm), demanded an intricate visual domain and a lot of patience, since what has been transmitted evocatively on the written page Rarely Translate well on the big screen. But Villeneuve achieves it, and “Dune: Part Two” perfectly balances the dramatic show with quiet and personal works, creating such an exquisite tension that one never tires of the Arrakis of Villeneuve.

The “second part” also dares to deviate from Herbert’s canon by placing Chani (Zendaya) as an emotional anchor for Paul; She is cruelly uprooted after he betrays her love for him. Although Chani is important in the books, it is presented as a character mirage, secondary to Paul’s ambitions and what the rest of the Fremen expect from him. Villeneuve remodel her love story to turn it into one that matters deeply, since Chani is skeptical about the Paul Messiah complex and everything she wants to achieve and observes with horror how she ascends to power anyway. These films do not go alone, and I can only desperately wait for “Dune: Messiah” to work and Villeneuve does it. finally Get the Oscar as director who deserves.