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mad max fury road is a 2015 film from georgemiller, a man with a film career so eclectic, chances are, there’s at least one film youwon’t believe he directed. he directed: lorenzo’s oil, part 4 of twilightzone the movie, the witches of eastwick, babe: pig in the city, yeah, just the second one,happy feet, and not content with just one spin around that carousel, happy feet 2.what’s funny about the list is the moment you realize how good everything he’s everdirected is. i mean he turned a movie about a pig winning a contest into a commentaryon an ever-disappearing american middle class. or that happy feet is a film that teacheskids that racism makes penguins sad and critical thought is imperative to surviving in a worldwhere religion exists.
yeah, it’s a film about atheism and it’sbaby bok choice. but mikey, what more is there to be said aboutmad max? surely the never-ending carnival of think-pieces have said everything thereis to be said about this film. surely all thoughts about this film’s thematic stanceson female objectification, slavery, religious idolatry and indoctrination, post traumaticstress disorder, and tom hardy’s pursed, scowling maw have been exhausted. his dreamy,vulnerable, not-here-to-talk-just-here-to-listen scowling maw.well, for starters, the one thing nobody pointed out was but if you like causing trouble upin hotel rooms. come on, you knew the was coming back. theirony of using a boy band song ostensibly
about manufactured ideals of masculinity juxtaposedagainst the story of numerous men being emasculated by their own ideals of a male-centric worldview.you know, and murder. yeah, maybe i wasn’t just playing a “stupidsong.†keep up, i move fast. but what more is there to say about this filmthat hasn’t been said? let’s find out.surely everyone has heard this film called a “visual story†or something to thateffect before. there’s certainly a lot of truth to it. originally conceived as a visualscript, composed entirely of storyboards and minimal dialog, this film is the very definitionof visual spectacle. i’m sure, in some form or another, you’ve heard about miller’suse of center-center frame to ensure that
fast edits could be employed without the audiencelosing track of the action because their eyes aren’t getting tired darting all over thescreen. think of it like the craziest wes anderson movie of all time.amazing wes anderson version. everything happens in the center so that millerhas carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wants without the audience getting confusedor growing irritable like your bowels after you went back for thirds on those ice-coldrico’s cheese nachos you keep throwing under your seat at the theater.got em – watch ya back, rico’s what’s most fascinating about this film,at least to me, is how unpossible it is that it even exists. the last mad max film, beyondthunderdome, came out in 1985, meaning that
30 years have passed between sequels. andwhat’s markedly cooler about that fact is that this movies goes out of its way to feellike it was made in the 80s. this is obviously betrayed by the fact it gives us a mix oftraditional and cg fx that mix together to create an absolutely butt shit insane numberof the the greatest shots of all time tm. this movie is so 80s, it’s actually ridiculous.look at all the cars, the makes the models, mostly 60s and 70s, which were the exact samekinds of cars that the series used the first time around.the sped up footage to create a stylistic effect on a lot of the fight scenes.immorten joe looks like he walked out a roger corman film about mutant demon people thatlive in the sewer called “tunnel bangersâ€.
practically every group of people in the filmhas a reason to be fatalistic, like the war boys believing that their death will grantthem a second life in valhalla. so every time they’re on screen, they’re pretty muchwhatever crazy thing they can do to die. this isn’t an accident, i think miller neededa reason. um. this guy.monster trucks the title treatment is like something poisonwould have been, yo, could you tone it down? as a film short on dialog and even plot, icontinue to find new depths to which this movie goes to structure something. like thedeath of splendid, which basically ensures that they don’t fail their mission, almostdoesn’t happen. only because splendid cannot
load the gun, and it is taken away, makingher feel like she doesn’t contribute to the group, which i may add is accomplishedonly by the look on her face. she, staring at the window to collect herself, sees thatjoe is about to shoot furiosa, she jumps in front of the bullet, knowing joe won’t shoot.a moment later, as she dodges the rock, she still falls off the door and goes under thewheels. but because joe has a feeling that one time, he kills at least one person, destroyshis car, and greatly injures himself, all to to try and save a person they all knowis dead. but that’s really the only reason they escapebecause it’s the only thing that could actually stop joe with the tools they had. if anythingin that entire sequence had changed, it’s
reasonable to believe that none of them wouldbe alive. which is a highwire act of a way to constructyour film, which couple with the pacing straight out of nascar race, makes fury road a singularexperience, unlike anything else released in … ever.think of the pacing this way. the film basically starts in the second act. there’s no reluctanthero, there’s no call to action, there’s no real set up of any kind. max is just pisseson a cliff, eating a lizard, like you do, and then it’s like okay act two. same withfuriosa. there’s no scene where the movie has to sell to us that the wives are mistreatedby joe (thank god,) the decision to risk life and limb to help their escape is already made.we see her eyes and it’s like, yeah, that’s
enough act one for me, let’s do dis.it’s life blood may be that of an 80s movie, but it’s execution is as modern as anythingmade recently. think of fury road like it’s the greatest michael bay movie ever made.it’s not a stretch. it’s pretty much entirely action, it’s color palette and contrastsomehow manage to push beyond even transformers. teal and orange teal and orange teal and orange.max is, by virtue of his capture, a blood bag. but he’s also a scavenger, knowingwhat kinds of things he won’t come across all that often. so he fastens his blood tubeto his shirt, which comes in really handy to save furiosa’s life because, wouldn’tyou know it, they also set him up as a universal donor. pay attention to everything. everylittle detail in this movie gets reincorporated.
here’s a few other things.max loses his shoe in the first fight, steals nux’s off screen after the second one. later,when max murder a gaggle of people off screen, he returns with a shoe for nux because hecares about his buddy’s toes getting cold. nice guys finish first.the scene where max plays find the gun with furiosa sets up every single gun and ammocache used over the rest of the film. the moment furiosa decides she needs to trustmax, is the moment she asks for his name. only at the end of their journey, does hegive it to her. at this point, he finally trusts her. he has trust issues okayblack and white. maybe it isn’t about that. maybe it’sabout systematically breaking something down
to gaze in stunned awe at the breathtakingcraftsmanship on display in so many areas. because, maybe, this is a film chiefly aboutone thing. sure, it’s definitely about five women fightingthe patriarchy that has enslaved them, aided in their journey by max, a sixth team member,who despite being the title character, is not the person in charge, because it isn’tabout giving the orders, it’s about how far you’re willing to go to fight injustice.heeeey, that has cultural ramifications now. he never says this is what we’re going todo, he offers ideas and allows furiosa to make the calls, because this is her fight,not his. but it goes deeper than that because it exposedthat the people screaming the values of their
patriarchy under the pretenses of false godsare actually entirely full of shit. the irony of a boycott claiming that a movie where maxhaphazardly runs into a group of women and just goes along for the ride isn’t a realmax max movie, is really nothing more than proof that the very people boycotting thefilm have never actually seen a mad max movie, or even worse, they fundamentally didn’tunderstand that it’s exactly what happens in a mad max movie. because in a lot of ways,max has more agency than he ever has before. hell, this is the first film he actually gotto his own voice over. or did you forget it was feral kid in the road warrior?max is a tragic figure. he lost a wife and a child to the violence that has permeatedhis entire life.
so the entire birth of his character was aboutfighting injustice in a world that has no reason not to be cruel because it is no longerpropped up on the amenities of a civilized society. since his beginning, max has beenabout trying to prevent the very thing that created him from happening to any one else.i mean, jesus christ, it isn’t about which one of them fights better, or who contributesthe most. it’s about why working together and understanding are the only things allowingus to retain our humanity in the apocalypse – which we are almost surely heading toward.the very criticisms against this film are a fundamental misunderstanding about whatany of george miller’s films are actually about.it’s almost comical at this point that the
opposition in this film is a repugnant liartoting the virtues of subjugating females into archaic gender roles and sending the“war boys†after anyone that doesn’t agree.surely, we are all capable of at least some self-awareness.and it’s perfectly rational to find that message preachy, especially if you find yourselfin opposition to it. but if you are a male i would ask that you attempt to reason outwhat this film actually is and what it means for yourself, not to be lured in by the propagandaof others just be like nux. he questioned his role inall of this and realized he was helping to prop up a wholly corrupt system. that a characternamed capable proved to nux with finality
that women are in fact capable, a fact hewas earnestly was not aware of, shows you how far this movie is willing to go to breakthings down into easily digestible pieces. unless, that is, you simply refuse to eatit because symbolism is gross and i don’t like movies that make me feel things and questionmy own belief system. then, my friend, i’m afraid you don’tlike movies because the second we don’t allow our art to challenge us and our beliefs,is the moment we cease to be human. unlike practically every film ever made, insteadof putting it at the front, miller chose to put his quote at the end, punctuating allthat came before it. ‘where must we go, we who wander the wasteland in search of ourbetter selves?â€
which better selves do you think he is referring?to punctuate the punctuation, the quote is in black and white, because there are nottwo sides to this argument. and then we become more like immortan joe,an inhuman ghost man with an octopus face. so maybe the one thing that this film is about… is being a good ally. because, sometimes, it isn’t our fight.and sometimes, we need to give too much of ourselves for no other reason than to standup with those that need us to. and that’s harder when you know it’s a losing fight.because you’re hanging by a thread, and people are stabbing you in the back, and youcan’t keep everything together. you fight. because there’s a better world on
the other side of it.
