Notes from December, 2024

Villeneuve's adaptation earns its scale. The film is patient in a way blockbusters rarely allow themselves to be — it trusts that the strangeness of Arrakis will register if given space to breathe. Hans Zimmer's score is doing a lot of work here and deserves more credit than it gets.

The second film is better, but this one does the necessary and unfashionable work of world-building without apology.

Martyr! is familiar and totally alien, an articulated empathy of what it feels like to be of this place and that, and of rediscovering what it means to be of the homeland. Kaveh Akbar brings characters that are real and instantly recognizable, and puts them in uncanny landscapes that seem alien while they shouldn't be.