Yeah, I don’t sleep much, I… I keep dreaming about being lost in a maze. This line from Prisoners, I think, captures pretty well what is the essence of the work of French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve; dreams about being lost in a maze. Today, Denis Villeneuve is probably best known for presenting dark and hostile worlds with moody, contemplative atmospheres, which are occasionally interrupted by quiet moments of beauty, and by sudden bursts of violence. His earlier works however had a very different style to them, his breakout film Polytechnique for example, shot with handheld cameras in black and white, felt more like a documentary and forms a stark contrast with the highly stylized worlds of Blade Runner 2049, and his newly release Dune. Julian Palmer from the channel The Discarded Image covers this stylistic evolution in an excellent essay titled ‘How Denis Villeneuve Found His Voice’, but for now, I want to focus on the underlying meanings of his stories, which I think have more in common with each other than the different aesthetics might suggest. This is a pattern that repeats itself. From the very beginning, Villeneuve has shown a clear interest in the chaos of the world, the enigma of the human mind, and the implications of their at times violent clashing. The result, at least for me, is a filmography that is challenging yet thoughtful, bleak yet cathartic, and above all, one that presents a complicated vision that I want to understand better; what are these stories really about? What do they reveal about who we are? And how exactly does he communicate this? So today, let’s follow Denis Villeneuve into the dark depths of humanity; explore what happens when our lives turn to chaos, when we are plunged into the enigma of existence and are faced with the darkness arising both from the world around us, as well as from deep within ourselves, from the intricate webs of the human unconscious that are driving us to fear, anger, and violence, that are causing us to suffer and despair, yet that also finds perseverance, beauty, and hope. Let’s dive into the cinema of Denis Villeneuve. This video is brought is brought to you by MUBI. We can already tell a lot about the human condition through the eyes of Villeneuve by the way in which he introduces his characters. On the surface level, these introductions feel characteristic of the well-known concept of the hero’s journey, in which main characters begin in the ordinary world, living what to them is an ordinary life. A family celebrating Thanksgiving, an FBI agent on the job, a student, a teacher. However, what Villeneuve emphasizes is that the ordinariness that these characters experience has little to do with the external circumstances they are in, rather it is about their state of mind, about their internal worlds in which they have constructed a certain view of the world and a way to position themselves towards it that allows them to live safely and secure, that allows them to live ordinarily. In some cases, they have to some extent shut themselves off from the world, like Louise in Arrival, who is a teacher who goes through her daily routines and sort of lives in her own bubble, which isn’t unlike K in Blade Runner 2049, who is a replicant working as a Blade Runner; a hunter of other replicants, while being perfectly content with the artificiality of his world, Voila, bon appetit. and the artificiality of himself. You have any memories from before?
- I have memories, but they’re not real. They’re just implants. Or Paul in Dune, who, as the heir of a powerful family, lives a life of sheltered privilege. I guess I'm not in the mood today. Mood? What's mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises. No matter the mood. Now fight! It also isn’t unlike the characters who are slightly more pro-active in their acknowledgement of and reaction to the threats that the world poses, yet still live in the safety of their own constructs, in their belief that they have what it takes to confront chaos, like the protective father in Prisoners who, at least in his own perception, is always prepared for the worst. My husband likes to be prepared for emergencies. Or Kate in Sicario, an idealistic FBI agent who thinks she is part of a force that is making the world more just. In short, Villeneuve’s characters are introduced as unaware, in a way, who are not actively engaged with the chaos of existence, with the grand enigma of being, and understandably so, because this tends to be our default position. We all need some security, some sense of order to be able to function, not just when it comes to our environment and external circumstances, but also when it comes to our identity, our inner self. We generally go about our lives with some idea of who we are, what we want, what we stand for, and what the outside world is like; how we view others and existence in general. We may even be convinced we have it all figured out, that we have mastered the world, and ourselves, and enjoy the confidence we derive from doing so. That is, of course, until something happens that changes everything, that shatters our conception of what we thought we knew. There are days that define your story beyond your life, like the day they arrived. And here again; the real attack is not so much on their external circumstances of the characters, but specifically against their sense of identity; the protective father loses his daughter; the artificial replicant might be naturally born after all, I always told you. You're special. And the FBI agent fails to achieve justice. In essence, the core of their very being becomes challenged. You made me feel so safe. You told us that you could protect us from everything. And so, the journey they embark upon is above all an odyssey of the soul; one where they must face, without any protection, the chaos of the world, and the chaos within, to rediscover themselves and their sanity, to find a renewed sense of order, or to become lost forever. Nothing will make sense to your American ears. And you will doubt everything we do. And this is where the stories of Villeneuve truly begin. This descend into a new realm, or rather; a new mode of experience, often has a clear visual aesthetic that invokes a feeling of chaos and hostility; if the world is not literally turned upside down, we see disorganized powerlines and barren branches that entangle characters like spiderwebs, and dense urban landscapes that entrap them in maze-like constructions, as if warning them that, if uncareful, they are sure to lose themselves. You wanna be a part of this? Do we get an opportunity at the men responsible for today? At first, Villeneuve’s characters often face the onslaught of chaos with some degree of confidence. When the FBI agent Kate gets a chance to join an obviously shady operation, What's our objective?
- To dramatically overreact. there is a part of her that is intrigued, as she believes that she can use it to her advantage, to empower her own ideals. We’re not even scratching the surface, doing what we’re doing. They are. When Keller is certain about who kidnapped his daughter, and when the police let this person out of custody, he too is sure about what it is that he has to do. We hurt him till he talks or they’re gonna die. That’s the choice. And when Paul receives visions about an upcoming holy war waged in his name, That's the future, it's coming. he initially believes he can utilize this knowledge to defy his fate and rewrite the future. Let’s suppose I presented the Emperor with an alternative to chaos. You’d make a play for the throne? However, it doesn’t take long for this confidence to be severely shaken, if not utterly destroyed. Why are you making me do this? Villeneuve makes it clear that the chaos that his characters thought they could control, perhaps even harness for their own purposes, is simply too great, too powerful, too overwhelming. The universe is big, and we are small, he seems to say here, let’s not presume we have what it takes to fully understand it, let alone manipulate it. Most notably, he does this by withholding vital pieces of information, which means that his characters, and also we as the audience, always operate with a limited understanding of what is really going on. That is just a piece of the puzzle. And so despite them believing they have the puzzle figured out, that they have it under control, there is always a moment where they are put back into their place. So that's it, that's why I'm here. Yeah that's it, that's why you're here. It’s not even just that they are missing the most important pieces of the puzzle, more often than not, it’s that they have been focused on the wrong puzzle entirely. Take for example how the mathematician in Incendies realizes that the equation she has been trying to solve has been a false one. Or how, on a more meta level, Arrival fools the audience by subverting our assumptions about basic cinematic language to completely flip around our understanding of the story. I don't understand, who is this child? While this overwhelming chaos of the world is often communicated through extreme wide shots that quite literally dwarf the characters in their surroundings, and make their initial belief that they could confidently make their way through all this seem silly in hindsight, Villeneuve also fluctuates towards extreme close-ups to emphasize how these moments of revelation are not so much about the outside world as much as they are about the inner ones of the characters. Massive wide shots that will put back humanity into their place, into the ecosystem, meaning that they are ants on the surface of a planet. And at the same time we are following a very intimate journey. Because it is here, broken down by chaos, that characters realize, for better or worse, who they have truly become. Their fundamental being is laid bare, and we get a glimpse of the real forces that have been at work there, that have been driving their actions, their desires, their misplaced confidence, fears, anger and frustration. This is where we get to the essence, where we enter into the enigma of the mind. I'm curious, are you dreaming in their language? The chaos of the world does not only affect Villeneuve’s characters as an external force, it also awakens something within them, which is often depicted through dreams and visions, the meaning of which is made quite clear in the very first line of Dune: The deep here likely refers to our unconscious, a term which was coined by Sigmund Freud to conceptualize all the inner associations and impulses that are not accessible by our conscious mind. In Dune, there is a power called the voice which directly taps into this part, and which nicely illustrates how there is something within us that can move us against our own will and without our conscious awareness. Freud initially used the term subconscious, but later abandoned it in favor of the unconscious as he felt that the term subconscious was confusing by suggesting either a topographical location; a part of the mind found beneath or below consciousness, which isn’t technically correct, or by making a qualitative suggestion; a part of the mind that is subservient to or less than consciousness, which also isn’t technically correct. And hence; we now talk of the unconscious, of the mysterious inner parts of ourselves that interact with our conscious mind in ways that we have barely begun to understand, yet that define so much of who we really are. Are you lying to me? You’re lying to me. Enemy is probably the most explicit example of this internal struggle and of the feeling of being of multiple conflicting minds. While arguably being Villeneuve’s most surrealist and complicated film, it is essentially a story of an adulterer who tries to recommit himself to his wife after she becomes pregnant, yet who finds it difficult to repress the deeper desires that kept pushing him towards adultery. The film initially begins with our main character discovering a person who looks exactly like him. But, as we soon come to realize, this person is actually a manifestation of his unconscious; repressed to the point where it became externalized. Again, it makes explicit the feeling of having more than one self, of having multiple voices, multiple desires, battling with each other in our internal landscape to claim, well… Control, it's all about control. And shows the problems that arise when we try to repress our unconscious, when we try to deny its presence within us, deny all our deeply hidden desires, fears and emotions, and believe that we are in full control, that we are the masters of our own private universes. For if we take another look at the initial attitudes that Villeneuve’s characters have towards chaos, I've made my choice.
- I'll volunteer. the ways in which they believed they could control it, harness it even, there is an underlying sense of grandiosity, of self-righteousness and self-importance that is most likely born from the repression of the unconscious, and the denial of the fact that they are not only small beings in a bigger world, but that they are also but small points of awareness within a bigger mind. And I think it is through this lens that we get a true understanding of the struggles of Villeneuve’s characters. This sort of revelation is beautifully deconstructed in Blade Runner 2049, which starts off as a classical heroic journey; an ordinary person discovers he is actually extraordinary, and goes on an adventure from which he is sure to return as more complete, more empowered than before. While K is initially frustrated and frightened by the idea that he might be extraordinary, which in this case means that he might be a naturally born replicant, as the existence of such a being is sure to upset the entire order of his society. The World is built in a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there's no wall, you've bought a war. Or a slaughter. It is also clear that there is a part of him that is excited at the thought of being special, of not being a soulless replicant but, for lack of a better term, a being of value, a being of importance, perhaps even; a being of power, which isn’t unlike the beliefs that drive his replicant counterpart and later nemesis Luv. The best angel of all, aren’t you, Luv? But towards the end however, in an Arrival-like subversion of our basic assumptions about storytelling structure, it is revealed that our extraordinary hero isn’t extraordinary at all. You imagined it was you? Oh, you did. We all wish it was us. It is through this revelation that we are forced to re-evaluate what exactly had brought him to this point. Was he driven by a true desire to have a soul, to be like everyone else, or was there some part of him that was also indulging in the fantasy of being the chosen one, a messiah, someone who is more important than everyone else, more capable than everyone else? In other words, to what extent was he deluded by grandiosity? To what extent are we? For I think it is true that, in some way or another, we all wish it was us. We all suffer from a certain degree of grandiosity; we all believe we are equipped to face the world that confronts us, that we have it all figured out, or are capable of doing so, at least in the ways that matter to us. And to me, it seems as if Villeneuve wants us to question this relation to grandiosity, wants us to question to what extent we are the false messiah’s of our own stories. For thousands of years, we’ve been carefully crossing bloodlines to bring forth… - The one? Dune takes this one step further by presenting a similar prophecy of sorts about the coming of a chosen one, a savior to lead the universe towards a better future, but also immediately reveals that this is not some kind of divine promise, but merely the result of a rather malevolent act of eugenics, and of the deliberate planting of superstition. It's their name for messiah, it means that the Bene-Gesserit have been at work here. Planting superstitions? It basically turns our beloved hero’s journey into a critique of the assumptions we often take for granted, and explores the implications of, like Paul does at one point, of leaning into our own grandiosity, of what happens when we start to believe our own mythos despite it being an obviously false construction. The Fremen speak of tthe Lisan al-Ghaib, Careful... A voice from the outer world who will lead them to paradise. The reason it is so important to have a better awareness about all this, is that without it, we become blind to what is really driving us. For whatever we repress will always come back to the surface, where it is bound to affect our conscious awareness, affect our perception, our beliefs, and our actions. And especially when we find ourselves lost in the maze, when we are feeling threatened, when we are afraid and vulnerable, when our feeling of control and mastery is most challenged, this, as Villeneuve so often shows us, is what leads us astray, what causes us to lash out, or even; what makes us give in to rage, hatred and violence. We see this in Polytechnique, a dramatization of the 1989 Montreal school shooting, where the gunman blames his own problems and those of society on feminists, and essentially comes to see himself as a messianic figure. Though of course, what he really is, as the film also quietly yet effectively shows through the perspective of a female student, is little more than an agent of his own delusions, one who ends up solving nothing, and only causes incredible suffering to those around him. We also see it in Arrival, where a group of soldiers become so convinced by their own idea of what the aliens are after, and so convinced by their own idea of the righteous course of action, that they end up doing more harm than good. The same can even be said for Keller in Prisoners. Although it is understandable that he wanted to do whatever it takes to save his daughter, he also became consumed by the idea that it was he, and he alone, who had to do the saving. Do you understand that? Me. Not you, not you, but me! And as a result, he not only hampered the police investigation, but also became so blinded by his rage that he didn’t stop to question if his actions were mistaken, didn’t stop to consider that he might have been brutally torturing what was, as it eventually turns out, an innocent person. The detective who is also working the case is not exempt from this either however. We meet Loki as a detective who has never lost a case, Your police captain told me that you've solved every case that you've been assigned, is that right? and who is clearly somewhat overconfident because of it. I’m gonna find your daughter. And so, when it seems he is about fail for the very first time, his inner demons also come to the surface. He loses control, and pays for it. So you lost this one, alright? Look kid, we can’t always save the day. And as for Paul, there is an interesting moment in the film where he has a vision in which he receives what is perhaps the most meaningful and most humbling advice, yet they are words that will never be spoken out loud to him as they come from a character who, shortly after meeting Paul, is killed by him in a duel, which just so happens to be the same moment where Paul arises as the ominous messianic figure, and in a way, embraces his grandiosity. My road leads into the desert. I can see it. What exactly is foreshadowed here about how exactly Paul’s journey will unfold in Villeneuve’s adaptation we cannot yet say, because as Chani remarks at the end: This is only the beginning. In the books however, he eventually reflects, without spoiling too much; “There are some things no one can bear. I meddled in all the possible futures I could create until, finally, they created me.” It’s rather cryptic, but it does suggest an affirmation of what we have been discussing so far; that there is a grandiosity within us that, if left unchecked, will certainly lead to us overestimating our capacity for control and our feeling of righteousness, and that at worse may result in us causing destruction and pain. So what are we to make of all this? Are we to simply bow down to chaos, are we to become cynical and passive towards a hostile world that we cannot change, and towards the destructive parts of ourselves that we cannot control? Here, I think, things are not as bleak as they might appear. For while Villeneuve is clearly drawn towards understanding the dark depths of humanity, he does so purposefully; not to make us all pessimistic about the world and the human condition, but rather to challenge us to find a grounded, and meaningful source for hope and optimism. As a filmmaker I'm digesting reality and I try to put it on screen in some ways or the other, but I need hope, I need beauty, I need poetry, I need...
I need to have hope, yeah. Arrival probably communicates this most clearly as Louise is given the gift of foresight, which makes her see her own future. She sees how she falls in love with her coworker, sees the daughter they will have together, and the immense grief she will experience when her child falls ill and passes away. Many have taken this as a comment on determinism that is supposed to make us speculate about how the knowledge of our future would change our actions in the present, but to me, this seems like a perspective that is missing the point. The point of Arrival is that we can all, in fact, see our future. The original story that the film is based on even has the title “Story of your life”, which can be interpreted literally here; for even though we may not be able to see the details like Louise does, in a general sense, we all know what the stories of our lives will be; it is the story of a world filled with predacity, one where we are sure to encounter hatred and violence, suffering and destruction, and where we have to confront all that as limited and vulnerable beings, beings who themselves are not of one mind or one soul, but whose inner landscape is also one of conflict, one that can be as hostile and violent as the outside world, filled with forces striving for dominance, sometimes violently so. This is what we’re given. And this, is what I think Villeneuve wants us to see, for once we truly acknowledge that, once we come to accept that chaos is not a realm that can be contained, but is a fundamental and constant presence around us and within us, we would no longer need salvation from it in the absolute sense, no longer need messiah’s, or grand saviors. The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve.
But a reality to experience. Why do we have to go through all this when it’s already been decided? - Ceremony. It reveals that there is a performative aspect to life, as the Atreides show by performing a decision that had already been made, or as Louise shows by deliberately choosing to live out her future exactly as she saw it, it is like there are certain things that have to be enacted for them to become real. And while this may sound passive, staying grounded in the reality our lives like this actually takes tremendous awareness, and attention. Dreams make good stories, but everything important happens when we're awake. And it seems that the ones who are able to do this are precisely the ones who become heroic characters in the eyes of Villeneuve. They are not those who face chaos and defeat it, who conquer the world or achieve some kind of grand cosmic justice, but those who recognize their limitations, who accept the darkness that surrounds them, and come to embrace life for what it is. They are the ones who take the pain, the suffering, and the trauma, and continue in spite of it. Who despite being frustrated, despite being hurt, despite being lost, manage to hang on to something, who still find purpose and meaning, love, beauty and hope, who still find the strength to care about others, and to sacrifice for them, as if saying ‘well, we are all going to die, we are all going to suffer, I might as well do my best to help someone, to make things a little better’. Dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do. And so, if the films of Denis Villeneuve present themselves as dreams of being lost in a maze, in the end, they help us awaken from them. Like reciting Dune’s famous litany against fear, he plunges us into the dark depths of humanity, makes us face our fear, face the mind-killer, lets it pass over us and through us, so that we can see how where the fear has gone
there will be nothing, and only we will remain. Despite knowing the journey, and where it leads, I embrace it. We must move with the flow of the process. Because you've never seen a miracle. And I welcome every moment of it. This episode of my filmmaker philosophy series was brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service showing handpicked exceptional films from around the globe. Every day, they present a new film, whether it's a timeless classic, a cult favorite, or an acclaimed masterpiece, there’s no better way to explore the riches of cinema. They feature hundreds of carefully selected films, including some of Villeneuve’s earlier works. Their series A Cosmic Trajectory: Early Films By Denis Villeneuve is now showing August 32nd on Earth and Cosmos, and will start streaming Maelström next week. You can try MUBI for free for 30 days by going to MUBI.com/likestoriesofold. So be sure to claim your extended free trial,
and begin your month of great cinema today.
This is a really great YouTube channel. Everyone on this sub would really enjoy it.
It is likely you have watched a Denis Villeneuve film in the last decade, Prisoners, Enemy, Arrival, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049 and more recently Dune. If you're an avid film fan then you've probably watched them all. Denis has captured audiences with his brooding story telling technique, beautiful long vista scenes contrasted with quick and efficient violence. Like Stories Of Old, my favourite YouTube channel, attempts to uncover the depths of Villeneuve's work through psychology and philosophy. I highly recommend the video and the channel, it has a great back catalogue looking at film through the lense of philosophy and psychology, and imparting philosophical and psychological ideas through the lense of film.
Amazing - I can't wait to watch it. I love Dune, and I'm positive that JBP was influenced by it as well.