Yes, it is true, the real mover of this fourth Mad Max movie is Charlize Theron's Furiosa Imperator, not Max, and that is fine.
Fury Road seems to me to be an
extraordinarily well made futuristic road movie.
I strongly recommend it to anyone
who likes action movies and/or brilliant design and camera work. This is not a CGI extravaganza, it was made
without green-screens and computerized FX.
George Miller had, I read, 150 vehicles at his disposal, and boy does he
dispose of them as they race across the Australian (actually Namibian) desert
going there and back again.
Charlize Theron gives us a gritty and determined action-movie
lead character, with depth, in the central role of Furiosa Imperator, a warrior and
driver whose rebellion takes the form of rescuing pregnant concubines from the
Citadel’s ruler, Immortan, and heading for the Green Land from which she was
herself abducted as a child. Tom Hardy
as Mad Max is initially her unwilling and hapless passenger, but soon joins
battle with her against the pursuing hordes.
They are both gifted
performers. There is not a lot of
dialogue in this movie, but both actors know how to communicate without words. Hardy provides a persuasive reincarnation of
Max and Charlize once more plays against
her beautiful clothes-horse image. I
have long been a fan of both these actors and its good to see them
together. Nicolas Hoult as Nux provides
a pleasing sub-plot. Many of the
characters are truly cartoonish, but others
have subtlety and development
At the start of the film Max is captured and taken to The Citadel where he becomes a walking blood-bank for Nux (Nicholas Hoult), a sick young warrior who
does not look as if he is going to get
much older. Hardy does not have the wild eyed insanity of Mel Gibson’s
version, and almost under-plays his part.
Max is haunted by the ghosts of
the woman and girl-child he could not save in earlier Mad Max movies. Now he is looking for redemption; but
not through violence. He is certainly
not looking for a fight. Sometimes,
however, survival demands it of
him. For Furiosa and her pregnant
female crew it is also a necessity. All
they can do is run, and when pursued, fight.
The cinematography is magnificent, directed by
John Seale, who came out of retirement
for this project (as did Douglas Thrumbull for a very different movie, Terrence
Malik’s The Tree of Life). Seale once filmed the deserts of North
Africa for The English Patient, somehow making their graceful curves feminine
and almost erotic. Here he matches the
visual imaginations of Miller and Brendan McCarthy (the co-writer and Design
Consultant) with great skill. It has
been made with enormous energy and focus by a veteran filmmaker who has modern rejected CGI and shown us once
more the benefits of ‘straight’ film making.
The only CGI seems to be Furiosa’s proscetic arm
and the magnificent desert storm through which she drives, a maelstrom of sand and lightning.
This is an amazingly visual and kinetic movie, made with great technical skill as unrelenting in its power as the scores of
amazing vehicles that hurtle across the post-apocalyptic desert.
Fury Road has been hailed by
some - and denounced by others - as a feminist tract. If it is feminist to assert that women should
not be property, used as concubines or industrial-scale lactation producers
(sic), then this is hardy an advance on Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, and it is sad to see that in 2015 a film that in simply
takes womankind seriously can be seen as
a tract, or a triumph.
I was not
sure how feminist it was to introduce the escaping women as they stand, scarcely clad in muslin and chastity belts, as tall, beautiful and sultry as models on a Vogue cover. Actually three of these actors have been
fashion models, including of course
Charlize. But these images are
countered by the courage and determination (most of them) later display. And Furiosa is the real mover here, Max
simply becomes her sidekick, and in one telling scene he quietly acquiesces to
her markswoman skills when a vital pot shot has to be made. We also meet the Vuvatini, matriarchal bikers, fearsome survivors of the Green Place, whose lives contrast so
dramatically with those in The Citadel.
I am sure it was a joke to leave out the ‘l’ in Vuvatini.
But is it so remarkable to
have a female lead in an action movie?
Thirty years ago Tina Turner played Aunty Entity in sole charge of
Barter Town in Thunderdome. She was not warrior, she too smart
for that, and in the same film Max is rescued by the female hunter and leader of the
children’s oasis, Savannah Nix
(Nix/Nux?).
Since then we have seen
Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, Salt and Mrs. Smith, and many more battling females. Maybe Theron’s role is only remarkable in a
Mad Max movie because Mad Max 1 and 2 have
been hailed by so many (knuckle headed) men as hyper-masculine
narratives, even myths.
Charlize Theron has remarked that “I think George didn't have a
feminist agenda up his sleeve, and I think that's what makes the story even
more powerful, especially how the women are represented in it. I think when we use the word 'feminism'
people get a little freaked out, it's like we're somehow, like, being put on a
pedestal or anything like that. George has this innate understanding that women
are just as complex and interesting as men, and he was really interested in
discovering all of that. I think through
just his need and want for the truth he actually made an incredible feminist
movie."
I loved the movie, but am a little sad that Brendan McCarthy has
not been given more credit by critics as its co-screenwriter and design
consultant. Brendan is a gifted
comic book artist. He lives just down the coast from me and we have had a
number of conversations over coffee in town.
He was quietly talking about this movie two years ago, and I think he
was important in encouraging George Miller to resurrect the franchise. I can easily imagine particular
scenes, props or images coming straight
out of Brendan’s notebook. For example, Furiosa has an elaborate prosetic arm. There is no back story to explain its
presence, and it does not seem to contribute to the plot - or action – in any meaningful way, but it
really looks cool. She also chooses to
use dirty engine oil as makeup. Maybe that was to compensate for, or jokily
comment on, her fashion work with L’Oreal.
We also see people moving
on four stilt-like crutches as we pass
through the Dead Crow Land, and that’s cool too, even if no explanation is
given about how they can survive where no-on else can. During
the car/truck/ hybrid chases that make
up 90% of the movie we see warriors, called Polecats,
perched at the top of counter balanced
poles swinging across the escaping rig’s track to drop grenades into its cab. A
grenade launcher or a good throwing arm would have done the same job, but with
much less visual interest. I can so
easily see it on the pages of a comic book - in fact if you go the Brendan's website you will.
And
there is so much more to enjoy. The Doog Warrior is strapped to
front of one war-wagon playing a huge double necked guitar/flame-thrower. The flames are not employed to attack
anything, they are just there to look good. Another truck has a battery of koto style
drummers joining The Doog and augmenting the soundtrack (shades of the Wagner-blasting
attack helicopters in Apocalypse Now!).
As it happens I loved the design of Mad
Max; Beyond Thunderdome, Brendan’s
least favourite of the previous three, and we are given a fleeting glimpse of
a Thunderdome structure, and many of the boys and men in Fury Road look like Scrooloose from the earlier film; topless, with whitened bodies, shaven heads
and blackened eyes. All of these elements are simply cool, and precisely fit the comic book
visual aesthetic as well as that of the
previous films.
The
Citadel, where Immortan controls the flow of the precious element, water, is
deeply fascist. Entirely male dominated
(Furiosa’s exceptional role is never explained – why wasn’t she forced to become
another concubine?) Immortan appears
like a demi-god and is worshipped by his henchmen and subjects. The Citadel’s style is a mix of the Nordic and the
Nazi, with its own mythology and salvation
narrative of Death and Glory. For the young men serving Immortan dying in
battle will promise rebirth in Valhalla.
And who would not want to be reborn somewhere other than in this
desolate landscape, living in a tumour ridden body. When Max finds himself an unwilling
passenger on the escaping rig Nux is still tethered to him by his blood line
and has to go with him to keep alive, but all he wants to do is die. When at one point Immortan glances in his
direction Nux’s joy is complete. God
loves him and his eternal salvation is secure.
By refusing to embrace CGI Miller and his team have shown us that the
traditional skills of great design, terrific sound, amazing camera work and
dedicated stunt work can outdo the results of more modern GCI in the hands of a
great Director.
As the Ebert web-site review says “Fury Road is a challenge to a whole
generation of action filmmakers, urging them to follow its audacious path into
the genre’s future and, like Miller, try their hardest to create something new.”
