Dune: Part Two director Denis Villeneuve helped arrange a private screening for a man whose final wish was to see the film.
In January, a patient in his 50s at a palliative care facility in Quebec, Canada, reached out to end-of-life worker Josée Gagnon with a request: he wanted to see the Dune sequel before he passed away.
“I thought to myself, what can we do? Then my husband reminded me that I could make anything happen. So I posted on social media and we were in contact with Villeneuve’s team within 12 hours,” Gagnon told Global News.
The initial plan was for the man (who is unnamed to protect his privacy) to be flown to Montreal or Los Angeles to watch the film, but he was “too weak” to be moved, according to the Washington Post. Instead, Villeneuve’s assistant flew to him with the director’s laptop.
The man didn’t speak English and had to watch the film with French subtitles, Gagnon told the Post. He “was so weak that we thought he might die while watching the film,” she wrote on Facebook. The man ultimately was not able to watch the full 2 hours and 46 minutes of the film. He was in pain and saw only about half of it before he had to stop, Gagnon told the Post. He died a few days later.
Gagnon is inspired by the man’s determination, even if he wasn’t able to see the entire film. “It’s extraordinary what this man went through. The ending of a film, when you’re going to die, it doesn’t mean anything… All this existed for him,” she said, adding, “People have to continue to believe that everything is possible when it is done with heart.”
Gagnon still hasn’t watched Dune: Part Two, but when she does, “I’ll smile like an idiot the whole time thinking about this beautiful story.”
(Via Global News and the Washington Post)
