Denis Villeneuve’s Spacy, Mostly Forgotten First Movie Is Worlds Away from ‘Dune’

At first glance, Denis Villeneuve's August 32nd on Earth is a bit out there for a man who would go on to dominate the box office with the likes of Blade Runner 2049 and the Dune diptych. Initially premiered at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, the film is the first entry in Villeneuve's short but effectual filmography, one of four films made during what critic Amy J. Ransom referred to as Villeneuve's "Québécois auteur era." The French-language film by the Gentilly, Quebec-born director follows a model who is determined to give her life a greater meaning after surviving a car accident. Upon its premiere, the film was criticized for its “thin” plot and described as “only partly successful,” and though elements of the film could be described as half-baked, on closer inspection, Villeneuve’s debut film utilizes the kinds of visual storytelling and philosophical underpinnings that take center stage in his most successful films.

The Desert Is Alive in 'August 32nd on Earth'

After falling asleep at the wheel, model Simone (Pascale Bussières) wakes up to find she's survived a near-fatal car accident. A stranger gives her a ride to the hospital and reads the date off of his broken watch as August 32nd, an impossibility that coincides with a similar impossibility of Simone surviving her crash relatively unscathed, as she is informed at the hospital. Despite the good fortune of her survival, the idea that she could die at any moment dominates Simone's thoughts, so much so that she quits her job and asks her best friend, Phillipe (Alexis Martin), for a very particular favor. Simone has decided that having a baby would lend her life a deeper sense of meaning and asks Phillipe to be the father. Phillipe, who is in a relationship with another woman but has been in love with Simone for several years, agrees to her proposition, and his anxiety about the situation prompts him to add a joking caveat: the sex must take place in a desert. Simone takes this request seriously, and together the two friends set off for Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, a desert of a different kind.

'August 32nd on Earth' is a Prelude to Denis Villeneuve's Greatest Films

Much of Denis Villeneuve's debut film is experimental, and his early experimentation with visuals, scale, and shot composition gave way to many trademarks the director is now known for. In keeping with Villeneuve's later comments on dialogue in film, the first 6 minutes of August 32nd on Earth feature no dialogue, and much of the film is dedicated to visual storytelling.

Roughly half the film's runtime takes place in the desert, which, in August 32nd on Earth, is a blank canvas, used as a visual metaphor for the isolation of existential reckoning and rebirth. This is Villeneuve’s first outing using barren environments, both as visual spectacle and a way to tell stories of rebirth and search for existential meaning, which he will continue exploring in Incendies, where the desert and its color palette illustrate emotional desolation and revelation, in Sicario, where the barren desert contrasts the violent urbanity of Juarez, and in Dune: Part One and Part Two, where Paul Atreides’ coming-of-age and reluctant rise to messiah takes place in the deserts of Arrakis.

Citing François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard as two of his cinematic influences, Villeneuve utilized many elements of the French New Wave movement in his first films and later carried those techniques into science fiction, which is perhaps what sets his interpretation and execution of the genre apart from other directors. Many of these elements are present in August 32nd on Earth, from a pronounced deemphasization of plot and dialogue to meditative long takes to experimental editing—like the jump cuts that feature heavily in the film—which Villeneuve uses to stretch a small budget, evident in the way the potentially costly car crash in the film's opening sequence is edited.

Criticism levied at Villeneuve's debut film focuses primarily on the meandering plot and lack of a definitive conclusion, but it doesn't seem like a plot-centric, thematically conclusive film is what Villeneuve set out to make. A later review of August 32nd on Earth calls the film "mostly self-indulgent," which is correct, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. The plot is sparse, the characters are underdeveloped, and more consideration is paid to the film's visuals than any other element, but the most important aspect of the film is that it is very clearly a young director stretching his filmic muscles and finding his voice. Though it has all the trappings of an amateur director’s first professional outing, August 32nd on Earth foreshadowed Villeneuve's eventual mastery of his craft.

August 32nd on Earth is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

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