Above: Charlize Theron as Furiosa, a warrior in a bleak future. Photo ©Warner Bros. Pictures
“My name…is Max.” Those are the first immortal words of “Mad
Max: Fury Road,” George Miller’s ferocious tornado of car chases, uglified
evil, and grimy nobility. Yet the film
is not really Max’s story. Properly, it
belongs to Furiosa (Charlize Theron), the buzz cut-sporting, grease-smeared
warrior who ushers Max out of his post-apocalyptic funk and into the service of
a righteous cause.
When we meet Furiosa, she’s glaring behind a steering
wheel, getting ready to pick up some gas at the behest of the obese warlord
Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). But as Furiosa
drives across the limitless dessert (the film was shot in Namibia), we see a
flash of white flitting through her monstrous metal truck. It’s a young girl wearing a flimsy dress—one
of Joe’s many sex slaves, who Furiosa is smuggling to safety.
Mr.
Miller has said that the slaves were his way of making the movie’s MacGuffin
“human.” Yet they are not mere plot
devices. That quick shot of the girl and
the dress not only reveals Furiosa’s mission, but works as visual shorthand—a symbolic
cry that even in this dystopian world of grotesque cruelty and machinery, there
is innocence and hope. That’s why, early
on, we see a message for Joe from the slaves, blotted in white paint: “Our
babies will not be warlords.” It is a
poignant, defiant declaration, and a signal that Mr. Miller has no interest in
simply wallowing in the horror of the dystopian future he has envisioned. He wants to inspire us.
That inspiration grabs its pummeling power from the
film’s zany thrills. In each moment of merciless
suspense (like scene where the wheels of Furiosa’s truck get caught in wet
sand), the human drama and the action feed each other energy, creating volcanic
bursts of adrenaline and emotion. Yet it
is the climax of the movie that means the most.
We may live in an age where villains are constantly resurrected for the
sake of their prospering franchises (here’s looking at you, Loki). But there is a shocking, thrilling finality
to the battle between Furiosa and Joe.
“Remember me!” she seethes.
Then
she smashes his head.
When I saw “Fury Road” at the Lloyd Center 10 theater, the
audience cheered as Joe’s skull was quashed like a blood-soaked bowling
ball. A barbaric reaction? Hardly.
Joe is a dictator and his gruesome end feels like justice. We’ve watched this man starve and torture his
subjects, not to mention the off-screen rapes (several of Joe’s slaves are
pregnant). His death is a victory for
all, especially the women he’s exploited.
Hence the final scene of the film. Like Joseph Gordon-Levitt ascending to become
the new Batman in “The Dark Knight Rises,” Furiosa stands atop a rising
platform at the film’s end, far above a cheering crowd liberated from Joe’s
tyranny. From on high, Furiosa exchanges
a nod with Max as he disappears into the crowd bellow. It affirms their solidarity and yet visually,
Furiosa remains above him.
The future belongs to this woman.
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