DUNE : THE ORIENT, ORIENTALISM AND COLONIALISM
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...
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