Review of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) by Egor A — 03 Nov 2016

I won't talk about the visuals of the movie. Although dazzling and much written about, no visuals could possibly eclipse the powerful ideas it has to offer. And this is exactly the part that many critics seem to neglect for some bizarre reason.

On the one hand we have the world of men: infused with phony ideology, drunk on fake glory, and built for the sole purpose of feeding into power of a single man at the top. The rusty hierarchy is squeezing out just enough juice to keep the masses eke out an existence, but always wanting for more. The only exception is Mad Max, who, although an outsider, has also given up on hope.

On the other, we have Furiosa in the midst of a rebellious act, fleeing this pathetic existence with the few drops of purity it birthed, toward a Green Place. Through methodical hard work, she came to possess just enough trust and power to escape - for redemption, she said, but we learn soon after that she needed hope more than anything and anyone.

The attention to detail is astounding. In the action movie, which would normally just settle for a lot of CGI and loud sounds (and which MMFR has plenty of), the details are so abundant that they seem almost gratuitous: the school yard lingo you'd expect from a gang that maybe got stranded and grew up on an island and knows no one but each other; the unusual arsenal of tricks and weaponry suited for road wars; the war drums and flame-throwing electrical guitars that fulfill the role of military marches, yet much more shrill and insane; the skeletal arm drawing on the side of the rig. These couldn't have possibly be fashioned by anyone other than someone absolutely obsessed with that violent and grotesque world, someone who lived there for decades, and who survived to tell the tale. That's why this world, like a powerful magnet, clicks into place so naturally, into a hole that was apparently there - no lengthy explanations are needed, because the darkness it exposes lives in all of us.

At one point, I felt the anger so boundless I couldn't contain myself; it just exited in a shriek and left me shaken to my core for the remainder of their journey. I hesitate to call this an 'episode' of a 'film' for fear that it would diminish what it stirred. It is belief in justice, in freedom, in peace that is defiled and trampled upon if we only give in to the darker demons of our nature - if what rules instead are greed, bigotry, and violence.

What really got imprinted into my brain were the Many Mothers. The old women with dry chuckles and winks and smiles were the most reassuring, the most human sight of the entire spectacle. We need these women in our lives: those who don't listen to the war cries and war horns, but believe in their own righteousness and purity. Given the chance, they will create and grow and nurture, but they will fight with all their strength to preserve what's right when the have to. If only men were not so caught up on their greed, lust, and war games, we might have had a better, kinder world. If we trust our better nature, we just might, eventually.