Kritiken

[Jodorowsky's] stories feature an impressive roster of would-be collaborators (Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, H.R. Geiger, and Pink Floyd), and some of the set pieces he describes sound pretty neat. But if you're not a Jodorowsky fan, this probably won't register as more than a collection of amusing anecdotes.

Although this documentary's own sense of invention doesn't rise to the level of its magnificently loopy subject, it's still an engaging work: a testament to the charisma of Jodorowsky and the enduring power of his message, which resonates beyond the confines of sci-fi geekery. "Jodorowsky's Dune" has something to teach us about success and failure, and the unearned power that we grant those words in our own lives.

A fascinating and depressing documentary about a visionary director and his impossible dream... The documentary, by Frank Pavich, is an engaging and poignant portrait of Jodorowsky, now eighty-five, whose exuberant, cantankerous, and philosophical presence sets the tone. But the great reveal—the peculiarly potent influence that Jodorowsky's unmade film seems to have had on the Hollywood mainstream—makes the intricate tale of might-have-beens all the more infuriating.

Pavich is clearly in awe of Jodorowsky (who wouldn't be?), but he still treads a fine line between buying the director's notions of a spiritual quest at face value and soberly detailing said journey's particulars... They're great stories, and it's through them that Jodorowsky's Duneshows us how the greatest movie never made, in its own crazy little way, somehow still came to be.

The goal, Jodorowsky explains in Frank Pavich's wildly entertaining documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, was to mimic the effects of LSD without requiring actual drug intake... Pavich's film is less about ruminating on what might have been than asking why it's important to create. Jodorowsky's opus found its place in the cosmos, even without existing.

One of this film's many delights is its surprising lack of bitterness. (Perhaps because Mr. Jodorowsky, when he finally got around to seeing David Lynch's 1984 adaptation, was relieved to pronounce it "awful.") Widely credited with creating the original midnight movie in the bizarre "El Topo"(1971), he's a natural raconteur who may liken himself to a prophet but is no slouch at identifying offbeat talent.

Frank Pavich's fun documentary captures an unbowed, exuberant Jodorowsky, who recalls his team of "spiritual warriors" with the camaraderie of a battle-scarred veteran. At one point, Jodorowsky lets his rage fly, taking out his money clip and angrily calling it shit, empty, meaningless. He rails against a studio system that kills dignity and depth. It's a rousing, stand-up-and-cheer moment.

This is a fanboy movie, one more engaged with the excitement of possibility than that of reality, and whatever the noxious connotations of that form of film appreciation, this particular project does a pretty fantastic job of stirring up enthusiasm.

The presence in the documentary of Nicolas Winding Refn as a close friend and disciple doesn't help very much, and reinforces the feeling that Jodorowsky is kind of a con man, that everything he says is informed by astuteness, opportunism, and self-promotion. Even so, he is not an unsympathetic character: his vitality and sense of humour are contagious. And in any case, his megalomania is absolutely harmless.

The thrust of the movie is describing how totally outlandish his take on Frank Herbert's novel might have been. To even sample its intended component parts is to be exposed to an unthinkable world of pop art, acid-trip psychedelia, and rock n' roll.

While it's hard to buy the talking heads' claim that Jodorowsky's Dune, with the improbable help of Salvador Dalí and Orson Welles, would have changed the DNA of blockbusters, Pavich wisely keeps the focus on the happily jabbering Jodorowsky, as expansive as ever at 84.

I don't hope to see a movie at this festival, or all year long, that's as inspiring as Frank Pavich's documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune," the story of an enormously influential film that was never made.