Denis Villeneuve an empathetic humanist in a cynical world

By Bruce Kirkland
December 04, 2022

Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is an empathetic humanist in a cynical world. In an annual ritual of personal reflection, I have thought fondly of Denis since Halloween. I realize that sounds odd, but an intimate connection began on Oct. 31, 2016.

While I have met with Villeneuve and chatted with him since that day, Halloween 2016 was the last time I did a formal interview with him, just as he established an international reputation as a producer-writer-director. It was timed with the debut of his elegant alien-themed Arrival, an understated and somewhat underappreciated masterwork of sci-fi filmmaking.

Heartbreaking loss

Just before the interview – conducted by phone, in this case – I learned that my beloved mother had died, age 91, peacefully in her sleep at a hospice. I was choked up while talking with Villeneuve, and shared why. He offered to postpone the interview. I declined.

Why? Because he was the person I needed to talk to that day. Arrival deals with heartbreaking loss and personal grief. Yes, it looks like a sci-fi genre film on the surface, but it explores extreme human emotions in an extraordinarily subtle, deft manner that leads to healing.

Flash forward to Halloween 2022. My wife, Rachel Sa, had been urging me to finally see Villeneuve’s latest film, Dune: Part One. While we did not watch it that night – too busy with candy and kids – we did soon after.

Once again, despite its staggeringly broad scope, despite pitched battles, despite reinventing the giant sandworms from Frank Herbert’s legendary 1965 novel, Denis’ Dune is still intimate, elegiac and all about personal loss, grief and tragedy. But, of course, there is the healing that lets us take the next step.

Blockbuster hit

Dune: Part One became a $401-million blockbuster hit in 2021, regardless of the pandemic; it has been a big performer in streaming and on DVD and Blu-ray in 2022. And the Part Two sequel, which will essentially cover the second part of Herbert’s novel, is due on Nov. 3, 2023. Most blockbuster sequels leave me cold. This one has me eager to see for its humanity amid the medieval-style wars and the futuristic elements of space travel. Villeneuve makes his gritty sci-fi as rooted in reality as any fantasy can be.

Villeneuve had dreamed of realizing his own vision of Dune since he was a young filmmaker emerging in his home province of Quebec in the 1990s. I return to his earlier feature films in both French and English as part of my reverie. He has never made a film that is not worth seeing again and again, even if an individual title (his spectacular financial flop Blade Runner 2049) is fraught with controversy.

List of films

I don’t have the space to wax eloquent about the pre-Arrival films, so here is a list: August 32nd on Earth (1998), Maelström (2000), Polytechnique (2009), Incendies (2010), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013) and Sicario (2015). Find them, watch them, see his progression as a filmmaker.

But also understand the soul of the man who was so evident from the beginning when the remarkable Quebec producer Roger Frappier “discovered” Villeneuve and launched his feature film career with August 32nd on Earth. On Halloween 2023, I will be thinking again about Villeneuve and ready to engage with Dune: Part Two.

About Bruce Kirkland

Bruce Kirkland’s career spans more than four decades, working for The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Journal and finally, as the senior film critic, for 36 years at The Toronto Sun. bruce.kirkland@hotmail.com

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