The Dune (French: La Dune; Hebrew: הדיונה) is a 2014 French-Israeli drama film directed and written by Yossi Aviram. It is Aviram's directorial debut.
Hanoch (Lior Ashkenazi) is a quiet Israeli man who fixes bikes for a living and plays chess as a pastime. When he refuses to have a baby with his girlfriend (Dana Adini), pushing her to get an abortion, he's soon kicked out of the house and then takes off altogether, winding up in France for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, missing persons investigator Reuven (Niels Arestrup) has an encounter with a writer-on-the-run named Moreau (Mathieu Amalric) which ends with Moreau committing suicide, throwing the detective into a funk as he decides to take an early retirement.
But when Hanoch suddenly shows up in Reuben's neighborhood and is then found unconscious on a beach near a sand dune in the Southwest region of Landes, Reuven is drawn into one last case, which turns out being much closer to home than he imagines.
Has nothing to do whatsoever with a certain science fiction franchise.
The Dune provides examples of the following tropes:
- Facepalm: Reuven puts his palm on his face after Moreau commits suicide, since he came to Moreau to precisely prevent this from happening.
- The Insomniac: Hanoch has real troubles sleeping.
- Lead Police Detective: Reuven, an inspector leading a French police unit specializing in the search for missing people. He's about to retire when the film starts.
- My Greatest Failure: Moreau's suicide weighs quite heavily on Reuven's mind for a time since he didn't manage to prevent it.
- Straight Gay: Reuven forms a gay couple with Paolo (played by Guy Marchand). Both look, sound and act like your average old man.
- The Teaser: The first 14 minutes are the introduction of Hanoch in Israel, with the drama with his girlfriend and him being found unconscious one day after taking sleeping pills. Then the title drops.
