‘Dune: Part Two’ cinematographer Greig Fraser on seeing the world through Chani’s eyes

“One thing that’s probably not talked enough about is Chani. I feel like we — as filmmakers, as an audience — were sort of observing Paul through Chani for most of the time,” observes “Dune: Part Two” cinematographer Greig Fraser about the heroine played by Zendaya and how she shapes much of what we see in the world. Watch our complete video interview with Fraser above.

“Dune: Part Two” continues the story of Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet), who survives on the desert planet Arrakis with the help of the Fremen people and fights alongside them in a guerilla war against the Harkonnens who now control the planet. Chani is one of the Fremen, who ultimately falls in love with Paul. “There’s very clear links to her point of view … There’s clear times that she is watching him,” says Fraser, like when she sees Paul triumphantly ride a sand worm.

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“I always felt as a cinematographer that I was kind of observing Paul through Chani’s eyes,” the DP explains, “and it’s quite a clever take on that story that [Denis Villeneuve] as director has brought to it because you need to feel empathy for Paul, but you also need to sort of understand what he’s doing. Yet watching it through Chani’s eyes, you kind of don’t accept it.”

At the beginning of “Part One,” “you see Chani talking about how beautiful Arrakis is in the morning, when the light’s low. And then you contrast that to the end of the film, the last scene of the film, where she’s observing the same thing at the same time of day, beautiful light, beautiful low light. But it’s a very different tone. She’s changed. Chani’s changed over that period.” So in “Part Two,” “I think seeing the world through Chani’s eyes and being more with Chani, watching Paul and observing Paul, particularly towards the end as his descent occurs, is the way I think that we tell Paul’s story the best.”

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