
Dystopia has never looked more bleak or felt more exhilarating than in George Miller’s ‘Mad Max’ franchise. A large part of the harshness of Miller’s works, which have thrilled audiences for years now, comes from hallucinogenic visuals of a barbaric and crumbling civilization that is so similar yet so far, giving people the feeling of chills. But no matter how familiar his different world may appear may even seem to feel the manner in which he makes films is so high in contact that it’s never been hard to just zone out and bask in the enjoyment of the movies. End of the world? Awesome!
The sad part is, that it began to appear as uncool. This is simply because of the time gap from the time the first “Mad Max” movie came out in 1979 to now where the dystopia geography is not as far-fetched, as it used to be. Placed “a few years from now,” the first one follows the story of a patrol highway police officer Max Rockatansky, played by Mel Gibson, who has a family and seems to enjoy a normal life.
It’s clear in the very first frame of the film showing a signpost for the Hall of Justice and remarking that it is like entering the gate at Auschwitz ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ that things are going to go bad for Max. Those of you who would have made that association may have cringed but any reservations you might have had were soon gone due to the next sequences of pursuits and collisions, revving engines, and insane chuckling.
Miller’s latest and fifth film over this cycle titled ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’, in this case, however, is no such film – it is rather an origin story showing the life and age of the toughest cast ever – young Furiosa played by Anya Taylor Joy who is the eponymous last film’s hermetic rig driver played by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road. Two things have to be remembered by the audience when looking at this film — firstly, his Palmerstonian work Fury Road is to Miller what the greatest movies across the last decade irrefutably are to our generation — the summit of his art but secondly is a departure narrative-wise, and tonal-wise from other movies in this trilogy. Even though by the title and several posters, Max is again the headliner (as an actor, Tom Hardy stepped in for Gibson), the story itself has a different accent – the drive and the hope are packed in Furiosa and her journey.
“Furiosa” is appropriately a creation story of its kind as it revolves around a young girl, Furiosa at the start, which quickly also transitions into young adult Furiosa, which however does not seem to be quite liberating as she embodies the concept of a free being, however over time, it is transformed into brutish control neither here nor there but stagnant power. It starts off with the ten-year-old Furiosa (Alyla Browne) searching for food in a woody area near a magical location called the Green Place of Many Mothers. However, her dream is cut short as she is about to grab an interesting and let’s be honest, a quite metaphorical peach when a bunch of unsightly, mouth-breathing bikers storm into her vicinity. Before long, she finds herself abducted by the band of bikers who are riding for the desert with the poor girl tied to one of their bikes while her mother Charlee Fraser, and another woman chase the bikers on horseback that is the beginning of the fierce struggle for power and of bodies that is to follow soon.
The chase gets all the more intense and Miller combines numerous close-ups with vast long shots, while the kidnappers wreak havoc, the desert is silent. The heated struggle in the arch-like landscapes of the desert might remind of one of those earlier Mad Max endeavors, while the helping buttes and those running galloping horses apparently belong to the classic westerns which also gave this series some archetypal inspiration. Max has at many times appeared as if a gunslinger (or a samurai) cut and pasted from Hollywood into Miller’s much wilder head with the input of Mr. Joseph Campbell. As soon as Furiosa engages in the consumption of the captor’s fuel pipe, however, it is already evident that this wee captive is not a pretty girl who needs saving.
Furiosa’s quest gets darker when she is posted to Warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). This ruler is a caravanning narcissist who has control over a majority male horde. With a white cloak on his back and an author riding next to him, Dementus rides a chariot pulled by motorbikes. He is an idiotic character, but luckily for both Miller and Hemsworth, the man is crassly entertaining. His (fake) nose, showy mannerisms and outrageous hair snippets scream the type of eccentricity Dementus has. One can recall that the woman in the sketch style created by Miller will have rather exaggerated features: both (spiritually) the masculine hero of Charlton Heston and the Bedouin male from the Arabian epics shot in the harsh deserts – a completely different world, and a much of it.
Despite being mythic in his approach, Miller is still a realist. He is a narrative creator who reimagines and captures stories that have been told over generations: they give direction unconsciously most of the time to our lives. This is something I appreciate and have always enjoyed about his films. But it is noteworthy that he is a physician too and at a point was a set doctor during the making of some Max movies. This background explains, in my opinion, his interest in the physical form, especially in the sensational stunts that have become a staple of the series, and the pleasure he takes in portraying moving components of bodies, mechanisms, and ecosystems their functioning.
This film is in a way about Furiosa’s own body, and after a succinct but quite effective buildup of power struggles and plot mechanisms, she arrives at the Citadel, the impregnable fortress the character escaped from in “Fury Road.” There, she is corralled with women from the life, young cloistered handmaids whose only purpose is to reproduce for Immortan Joe (portrayed by Lachy Hulme) the leader of the Citadel. It’s here as well that young Furiosa (who is still played by a younger Browne) is noticed by one of the “litter” of Joe a huge predator who wants something sinister off of Furiosa and propels the plot into a different, more disturbing dimension. This part is, Miller correctly demonstrates very lightly emphasis and this creep doesn’t overstay his welcome and Furiosa does not succumb to this pervert but it is more than just a jolt to the system.
As the narrative unfolds, a sense of darkness alters the mood significantly. Furiosa avoids and protects herself from her would-be rapist by disguising her real identity and becoming one of the slaves of the Citadel. Years go by and history repeats itself as she becomes lost in the anonymity of the masses and the scenes change until a very fierce Taylor-Joy appears on screen. But that is also the tip of the iceberg: Furiosa takes her head off and gets Jack (Tom Burke, the charming cad in Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir”) the driver as her teacher, the Praetorian. They all go far away from the ordinary and together with hordes of followers embark upon odysseys to locations such as the Bullet Farm, where Miller is busy putting the pieces, including Immortan Joe and Dementus, into place and wowing you with his signature explosive effects.
Getting used to Taylor-Joy as Furiosa takes some time because of how distinctively Theron’s building of the character stands out with so much rage and sorrow. In ‘Fury Road’, Theron also appeared as if she was capable of overpowering every other character; well, in fact, she did not literally dominate Max, but she went on to become the franchise’s new mascot. Taylor Joy does not possess, maybe as yet, the physical presence of her predecessor but her movements are fluid as she has the training of a ballet dancer, much like Theron who appears to be delivered with grace. Despite being expected to be quite slight in her size owing to the portrayal of Furiosa, Taylor-Joy’s character of Furiosa’s look actually does not confirm for the destruction of Armageddon. Rather it is a portrayal that enhances the narrative of the depiction.
I can only assume that part of the reason why Miller chose Taylor Joy for his new Furiosa was because of the actress’s large, wide-set eyes. They’re huge. They are also quite fascinating. They are the kind of eyes that seem to control their own audience, never more so than in that moment when the actress looks up with her head bent. It is such an angle that emphasizes the amount of the white of her eyes ring which when in the sepulchral lighting of the Citadel is extremely good. (Jack Nicholson perfected this menacing technique in the film ‘The Shining,’ which is why it is called the Kubrick Stare.) The consequence, however, can be most destabilizing creating apprehension about the character and what could or cannot happen.
Furiosa’s keeping her mouth shut is in the game plan, but it is also a characteristic trait for Mad Max, the very man whom she is emulating the silent vengeance. When in the Citadel, it is surrounded by areas that could be construed as in motion which acts as a shield, but it makes the situation worse for the audience’s understanding of it. She is alienated, both in terms of spirit and every other in between, at least until she encounters Praetorian Jack, who at the onset appears to be a rather uncommunicative person. Hers is a lonely burden and as the plot of the story progresses along with the war that follows, it adds a touch of ‘surprise’ to how ‘Furiosa’ draws out such emotions where for a war film, it often is melancholy.
Even so, every scene in ‘Furiosa’ can be appreciated, since it is directly in tandem with ‘Fury Road’ but the new movie has more subtlety which is a downside. For example, it is one thing to observe characters in a film about fighters fleeing their home in search of a barren land. But it is a completely different thing when there is a focus on one woman trying to endure in a society that consumes its children. Considering how imaginative Miller happens to be, one may tend to ignore that he has always been making films centered on the themes of apocalypse. It is fun to see his starring characters battling over oil, women, and water, but only after ‘Furiosa’ can I say how wrong I was in not comprehending sooner that alongside being a great director, he also happens to be a brilliant harbinger of devastation.
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