Recently, director Denis Villeneuve caused a stir by stating that he hates dialogue in movies. "Pure image and sound," he said, "that is the power of cinema," while adding that dialogue is better suited for the stage and small screen.

In seeing Dune: Part Two I had an inadvertent chance to put his notion to the test. The closed captioning device offered by the local AMC failed completely: not a single line of dialogue appeared on its rickety interface for the entire nearly three-hour runtime. I was forced to rely solely on my hearing aids, which was, uh, less than ideal. As a result, I understood less than a quarter of what was said. The film was still an amazing and overwhelming visual and aural spectacle, so I had a decent experience on that level. Very immersive and bombastic. I figured, too, I had at least gotten the gist of the story – until the next day when I read a summary and realized I hadn't followed the plot at all. At all.

So no, Denis. Dialogue is essential in movies, too. You're not to blame, though, in this instance. It ain't your fault AMC's captioning devices are about as elegant as word processors from the 1980s – and, despite the impressive technological improvements over the four-decade interstitial, somehow less reliable.

This ends up being a first for me on Letterboxd: I'm logging a film but leaving it unrated, pending a rewatch. At home. On a small screen. With subtitles. As Denis Villeneuve no doubt intended.