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Mad Max Fury Road, an Action Opus with a Gentle Core

Humane, complex characters fill this wild ride of a reboot.

Dorothy Woodend 18 May 2015TheTyee.ca

Dorothy Woodend writes about film every other week for The Tyee. Find her previous articles here.

It's a good sign when you bump into a couple of people you know who are just exiting the film that you are about to see. It's an even better sign when those people say, "I wish I was you, seeing it again for the first time."

So it was with Mad Max: Fury Road. Director George Miller's robust reboot opened in wide release this previous week. Already the critics are frothing with praise and the plebs are lining up en masse. But is the hype all gunning engines and spinning wheels, or is there real power beneath the hood of this hot rod?

All I have to say is "Yeeeeeeooowwwwwww!"

For anyone who came of age during the original trilogy of Mad Max, The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome, a holy set list on constant repeat at video parties in the 1980s, Fury Road is a welcome addition. While the original conceit of the Mad Max universe is maintained, the new film surpasses its origins, and offers up a brand new post-Apocalyptic funhouse ride, with a surprisingly thoughtful subtext.

In a world that has fallen into chaos and ruination, humans have descended to little more than a pack of wild dogs, savaging what is left of the place, and then turning on each other in snarling snapping frenzy. Resources -- gas, water and food -- are controlled by the powerful through ritualized violence and constant threat. Watching the film one occasionally has the sinking feeling that we're not all that far from removed from this fictional place. Water is doled out in measured doses, and the population is imprisoned by desperation and need. It looks a lot like current day California. But put those thoughts out of your mind for the moment, you're here for some escapism, correct?

Do not fear, the film transports quite unlike any other action opus released this year. Indeed, there is nothing quite like a good old-fashioned science fiction dystopia to take away your worries about doing your taxes or going to the dentist. But for all its hammer and tongs approach, the film is curiously gentle in some ways. Scene changes are denoted by a fade to black and silence is used to great effect. Some of the most powerful moments take place in stillness when humanity's dire state is sketched out underneath an impassive heaven. God is long gone, and all that's left is brute survival.

The centre of the film is anchored by two oddly calm performances. Tom Hardy, who spent another film messing about in cars in Locke, plays the titular Max. PTSD flashbacks have rendered him half-mad, and his introduction in the film plays like a gothic nightmare of dead little girls and disembodied voices. Pity poor Max, he is truly lost in the wilderness of his own mind, wandering and alone. In a base rumble, he sketches out the reality of the universe that he occupies: "As the world fell, each of us in our own way was broken. It was hard to know who was more crazy -- me or everyone else."

Cool, raging gaze

The other pillar of the film is that of Imperator Furiosa, played by the statuesque Charlize Theron. With a metal arm and a coolly raging gaze, Furiosa is a driver and a soldier. She is more than Max's equal in strength and tenacity. Unlike her male counterpart, she has the courage of her convictions, and an indomitable reserve of hope embodied in her memories of childhood spent in "the green place" -- a lost paradise governed by women, filled with plants and life.

Our initial introduction to both these characters is brusque and peremptory. Almost before we're ready, we enter the wasteland, hotly pursued by a posse of souped-up vehicular maniacs. The film largely resembles one of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's Ratfink cartoons come to wild life. This aesthetic is carried throughout, not just in the design of the cars and trucks bristling with sharpened spikes like so many fast moving sea urchins, but also in the people themselves. Pinioned, pierced and festooned in face and body, cheeks and mouths, slit wide and then stapled shut, they too resemble assemblages of bits and parts, repurposed and collaged together for maximum threat and hostility.

In his attention to detail, Miller brings the goods in ripe, often overflowing abundance. Rich, thick Rococo embellishment abounds, lavished on like heavy icing on an overstuffed cake. It is luxuriant, generous, and occasionally bonkers. There is so much on display that the eye often struggles to keep up. This is a film that will no doubt keep fan boys and girls marvelling over the care and time allocated towards creating a fully realized world. But the filmmaker doesn't let detail clog the story -- the thing moves like it was on fire.

Caught and caged within the first 10 minutes of the story, Max's wild bid for freedom functions as full-on immersion in the world of the film. His prison is a stone citadel, overseen by a dictator named Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne in a nice nod to the original film). Joe is a grotesquery that puts Darth Vader to shame, with his powdered pustule-ridden body, kohl-ringed eyes and breathing apparatus that resembled an old-fashioned bellows. His control over the ragged populace is kept in place by an army of soldiers called the War Boys -- a collection of young white men bubbling with tumours, who derive their allegiance to their leader from the idea that death in battle will result in life everlasting in Valhalla. A young War Boy named Nux (played by Nicholas Hoult) provides much of this back-story. At least I think that he does; the speed with which he describes his society is sometimes hard to understand, with everyone yelling on about valor, victory and glory in Australian accents.

But the basic gist is that whoever controls the resources controls the power, and so it is here as well. Precious water (pumped from an underground aquifer) is measured out just enough to keep the people in check. Old Immortan puts the dick in dictator in other classic ways, maintaining his lineage on the backs of a harem of beautiful young women that he keeps stowed away in an underground vault. Like Mormon wives, the women are kept impregnated and under tight control, breeding stock for the continuation of male power.

Let me take a brief moment here to marvel at the men's rights groups who are calling for a boycott of the film, based on the idea that it is a female-led story. One wag called it a "Trojan Horse" feminist film. Feel free to scratch your head a little bit about this. Who would you relate to here? If it's some old white dude with a monster truck, and a bevy of Aryan followers, you might want to renew your white power membership, along with your men's rights card. But back to the story at hand!

The action kicks off when the wives stage a jailbreak, helped along by Furiosa and her awesome truck, the War Rig, a majestic creature, bedecked and festooned with weapons of every stripe and powered by mother's milk. I kid you not -- breast milk is at the heart of this massive beast of a vehicle. But before you get stuck pondering such curious inclusions, the plot picks you up by the scruff of the neck and drags you along. The chase is on, and really the chase never stops, it just keeps going, getting bigger, wilder, and more gonzo cuckoo, picking up speed, until it rockets into your gut and brain. But despite the velocity with which the action takes place, the film maintains an internal narrative drive that never falters. Namely that we want these women and their unborn children to escape the clutches of the monster that would rape and imprison them.

Gritty fighters

As the runaway women streak across the desert, Joe and his army of followers strap Max to the front of a moving vehicle and take off after them. Other male tribes (from Gas Town and the Bullet Farm, respectively) come to Immortan Joe's aid. These groups are presided over by male leaders with Elephantiasis, prosthetic noses and various other conditions. The men aren't looking so good. This is in stark contrast to the women who are sheathed in diaphanous muslin, glossy with good health and pampering. Indeed our first extended look at these babes finds them watering themselves down in the desert like they were on a Vogue fashion shoot. This posse of Apocalyptic supermodels initially comes across as little more than pretty cattle, but these women have grit, and soon enough, they're fighting for their own emancipation and freedom. They start by cutting off their chastity belts and leaving them by the side of the road. The Underground Railroad theme of liberating folk from sexual slavery is implicit, but like much of the film, it is only one more note in the grand Wagnerian thunder. Simply add it to score, like the trumpet blasts that mark the entrance of the Valkyries, and let this rock opera roar.

Götterdämmerung and away we go! Hacking, shooting, slicing and dicing in a cacophony of screaming engines and bodies flying through the air like bits of ragged confetti. It is a veritable feast of old-fashioned ultra violence. Add in lighting sandstorms, leap-frogging motorcyclists, flame-shooting guitarists or best yet, the "Vuvalini," a band of old lady bikers who maintain gardens in their handbags and fight like ancient wrinkly ninjas. Any film that makes a gang of weathered old grandmas into a super heroic fighting force has my full support.

Is this film hysterical? Certainly. It is good dumb fun? Yes, indeed. But there is something more than just another science fiction romp. As curious as it may seem, you care that these characters survive in the face of the insanely ridiculous odds that are ranged against them.

Here is where the film sets itself apart from the rest of the pack. It is equitable and fair in a way that few other action films are. Both men and women are given the scope to carve out their characters in the fullest spectrum of light and dark. I had every intention of liking the film, but this sense of justice made me love it.

Tom Hardy, an actor of some power, supports the action, using his physical heft and his voice, a velvety cat-tongued thing that scratches and purrs to great effect. Theron embodies her own brand of heroic with solidity and strength. Whether she is smearing grease over her close-cropped hair or saving Max from certain death with her robot arm, the pair is well-balanced, and you root for them to see themselves in each other. In this, the film is oddly romantic, albeit of the doomed and desperate variety. But as the men discover, the love of a strong woman can make you a better man, and an even better road warrior.

In the film's penultimate scene, when Max finally tells Furiosa his real name, making low noises of alarm in his throat, it is an act of bravery that surpasses hanging upside down on a moving truck. But even more importantly, it is act of humanity.

It's enough to bring a tear to your eye, or maybe that's just road dust.  [Tyee]

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