Back in 1973, Alejandro Jodorowsky assembled possibly the greatest cast and crew of any movie. Orson Wells, Mick Jagger, and Salvador Dali were to play major characters, coupled with designs by H.R. Giger and music from Pink Floyd.

The movie was called Dune, and it went down in cinema history as the greatest movie never made.

Director Frank Pavich interviews the surviving cast and key figures behind the movie. Jodorowsky himself, however, is the star of the show, breaking off an interview to play with his cat and denouncing the Hollywood mentality of profits vs ideals. He’s a very passionate man, and it shows multiple times throughout the interview. Believed to be grossly over-budget, Jodorowsky and others collaborated throughout, and included extensive details on construction, materials and cost to show that it could be kept within budget, even considering Dali’s demand to be paid 100,000 dollars an hour. (They later offered him 100,000 a minute but didn’t tell him they only needed him for less than 5 minutes. He accepted.)

Perhaps the most interesting moment in the movie is a montage towards the end. Almost all the crew went on to do amazing and influential movies, and many of those movies were themselves inspired by Dune. The hd in Terminator, the Xenomorph in the Alien franchise, the climax of Indiana Jones and the raiders of the Lost Ark, all these and many more are shown in the final montage, all coming from the same source, Dune. It’s an interesting look at what might have been, and what might not have been.

Highly recommended.

Donal O’Connor

Shown at this year’s TIFF13 : Toronto International Film Festival.