It’s been almost ten years since George Miller and Charlize Theron introduced the world to one of the great enigmatic action heroines of modern times. Imperator Furiosa, the fearless and determined rogue at the heart of a mission to save abused young women in Mad Max: Fury Road, became that rare thing in modern cinema history: an iconic original character. And from the get-go, Miller intended on giving her her own movie, explaining her backstory while expanding further this mad apocalyptic world that he had reinterpreted so profoundly. It was unlike anything else that had been seen, even in his earlier Mad Max movies, and it was the kind of world drenched in a propulsive high-adrenaline style that demanded more focus. Not to explain it necessarily, but to live in it.
In his old age, Miller has become one of the movie world’s most radical visionaries. His visual palette on Fury Road and the little-seen but brilliant Three Thousand Years of Longing is utterly mesmerizing and distinct. And Furiosa (needlessly subtitled ‘A Mad Max Saga’) gives him ample room to expound on it, to enrich the parameters of this dying world that he has enthusiastically concocted. And he does so with a scope equivalent to the energy he unleashed in 2015.
Much of Fury Road was concerned with Furiosa convoying the wives to an ambiguous idyllic “Green Place” she remembered vaguely from childhood only to find that it has been decimated. Furiosa opens on it in its glory, a lively oasis in the Australian Outback that the child Furiosa (Ayla Browne) is abducted from by raiders of a mass biker gang, who take her to their warlord Dr. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Over the course of five chapters the movie follows Furiosa’s journey, from the failed attempt by her mother to rescue her, to her captivity under Dementus as he roams the wasteland, her growth and accession to rig driver for Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and quest for vengeance against Dementus as he and Joe go to war -all while longing to find her way back home.
There’s never a wasted moment in any of it as, though Miller tempers the momentum compared to Fury Road, he imbues the film with just as much colour, sensation, and chaotic grandiosity. With occasional narration from George Shevtsov’s History Man, an old servant of Dementus who keeps records tattooed all over his body, the mythic proportions of the film are relayed aptly. Compositions back it up, often in incredibly deliberate ways -there’s some Christ-like symbolism and recurring iconography to Furiosa, and her mother (Charlee Fraser), prominent in the first act. There's a lot of overt classical imagery as well, from Dementus's motorbike chariot and long white (or red) robe, to the catacomb atmosphere under Joe's Citadel, to a direct Trojan Horse-inspired battle tactic when Dementus leads an attack on Gas Town, the most strategically important fortress in this dystopia. The story of Furiosa is an odyssey after all, but one in which Odysseus never makes it back to Ithaca.
Miller wears proudly the film's archetypal traits, those connections to great western, samurai and Biblical film traditions. These are fairly obvious across the Mad Max franchise -The Road Warrior was essentially an Australian apocalypse take on Yojimbo- but for Furiosa, he also looks interestingly to silent films, particularly the stunt-work legacies of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. As they did, he has an affection for practical stunts, and though the film incorporates more stylish CG effects than Fury Road, its commitment to real and radical stunt performance is just as pronounced. The battle on the big rig, as Furiosa and her single friend Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) come under fire from Dementus's minions on para-gliders attached to cars while slavish War Boys throw spears, is the kind of thrillingly creative, authentic, and propulsive set-piece that epitomizes why many other action movies are so mediocre.
More than the daredevilry though, Miller takes after those early films by letting a visuals-first philosophy drive this picture -the dirt and desert, asphalt and motor oil aesthetic alongside a concoction of Viking punk character stylings is the foundation that every other choice springs out of. And where it concerns Furiosa, she is a silent character except where speech is absolutely necessary. Taylor-Joy has commented she maybe has around twenty lines in the whole picture, and many of them are quite brief. And while it’s a testament to her performance capabilities that she is able to carry the weight and emotion of this character largely through expression or reaction, Miller clearly made a conscious choice casting Taylor-Joy, who has one of the most captivating faces in Hollywood right now -and she and the camera utilize that tremendously. It’s clearly an exhaustive performance though too, as Furiosa is put through a ringer as epic as her tragedy.
Furiosa, as its predecessor did, opens with a cryptic prompt: “As the world falls around us, how must we brave its cruelties?” It’s the method to survival that is centred here, and what Furiosa chooses to motivate her is right there in her name: Fury. Its flame is awoken from the moment she is abducted and doesn't ever abate, even when strategically stifled. And it’s very interesting that Miller doesn’t de-legitimize that fury, nor set his protagonist on a path that tempers it. It is a foundational, tragic part of her, which makes her narrative only more grand.
But another great thing this movie does is at long last successfully break Hemsworth out of the constraints of Thor. It’s taken over a decade of failed projects and performances, but Miller’s finally given him the chance to shine in a new way as this truly loathsome yet compelling villain with the affect of an old-time carnival barker yet the weaponized charisma of the most dangerous of tyrants. He plays it with exceptional intensity and just a little bit of perfectly modulated camp.
A fitting enough figure for a years-long mission of vengeance. He certainly forces Furiosa into enough brutal situations (of course we find out how she lost her right arm in connection to this) that coalesce into an abiding hatred. Rage is the greatest emotion in this world where everyone seems to embody their purest violent id. Yet curiously, Furiosa acts on it methodically compared to all the marauders, goons, and zealous acolytes around her. Despite her emotional and psychological distance, it humanizes her, along with the implied nihilistic understanding that her revenge doesn't matter. She still acts on it, up to the point where she is confronted opaquely with its futility on both a practical and personal level. The film articulates how the pursuit of revenge is a more powerful drive than the vengeance itself, and comes up with a clever and twisted resolution to Furiosa's -if it is to be believed at least. Legends after all need some room for ambiguity, and that's exactly how Miller conceives this story.
And that story just happens to include phenomenal battles in eclectic desert fortresses, post-industrial castles and magnificent monster vehicles -all conveyed in stunningly vibrant and considered cinematography that more than epitomizes Miller’s overwhelming scope. Furiosa does not possess the sheer encompassing exhilaration of Fury Road, nor quite frankly that film’s ferociously momentous political charge, but it is a stupendous saga on its own; a welcome return after far too long to this bold and glorious dystopia.
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