Janus Cinema

  Everyone has heard of DUNE these past years, the new masterpiece by Villeneuve based on the renowned novels by Frank Herbert. To summarize the story in a few words, it is a science fiction epic set in a distant future where noble houses vie for control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the universe's most valuable substance : the spice. The story follows Paul Atreides, whose family is entrusted with the stewardship of Arrakis, as he becomes embroiled in a complex struggle involving politics, religion, and the indigenous Fremen people, whose culture and survival are intricately tied to the harsh desert environment (It is almost a space-opera Game of Thrones, if you will). While I enjoyed both movies, I believe they significantly failed to do justice to Arab, North African, and Islamic cultures, which appear almost hidden and purposefully ignored. This erasure , as many critics and journalists have described it, is less pronounced in the novels but greatly accentuat...