Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024)

[DarkImbecile]

Anya Taylor-Joy may play Furiosa in a prequel

[yoloswegmaster]

Anya Taylor-Joy may play Furiosa in a prequel

Production has started on this:



Can't wait for this to come out as I find Fury Road to be one of the most exhilarating films of all time.

[yoloswegmaster]

Trailer

[therewillbeblus]

Furiosa

This seems primed as an unpopular opinion already, but I thought this was easily the best film in the franchise, distilling the highlights of every prior film to their sublime essentials and expanding upon them and more to create an epic of robust narrative satisfaction. That latter sensation I've never gotten so 'completely' from prior entries as other viewers (it should be noted I consider myself a massive fan of the franchise, I just don't think Fury Road should've won BP or anything). And while this might not be quite as 'action-y' as Fury Road (but what is? And even if not in such a 'relentless' sense, in another it's even more action-packed!), the set pieces and cleverly-imagined sequences we do get feel even bigger and more cathartic than anything in that film, or the others for that matter. Not everything works all the time - I can already predict complaints of overplotting, though the actual 'narrative' engagement is where the strengths lie - but this feels like the boldest outing yet in terms of both an ambitious scope fulfilled ten years ago and full-measured risk in storytelling and mythologizing, and hits nearly every mark it attempts. And even if all the parts together form a whole that would have suffered from any piece omitted, its episodic structure basically gives us five thrilling short films of captivating lore and witty visual ideas at a base value. Movies rarely have a fraction as many rich ideas as this does, nor do they execute them with an ounce of its unbridled glee. It's a blast.

[Yakushima]

Re: Furiosa

Furiosa had particularly big shoes to fill, so I was not too surprised that my first impression was mostly mixed.

First, what really worked was the imaginative, lived-in setting and the numerous intricate and campy details of the costumes, vehicles, and surroundings. They also introduced some great new secondary characters. The film is such a rich tapestry of interesting details and characters that I will be revisiting it despite all the shortcomings.

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They did a very good job with the younger versions of some characters. Immortan Joe, in particular, was so convincing that I was shocked to learn afterward that he was played by a different actor.

Now to the disappointing aspects. Furiosa mostly fails to establish an emotional core that was so integral to the success of Fury Road, in large part because Anya Taylor-Joy's acting abilities are a far cry from Charlize Theron's. To me, Furiosa was most engaging in the first third, where Alyla Browne played the Furiosa part.

Another issue was that the story defied logic a bit too much. Whether in Fury Road we were riding at the very edge of believability, in Furiosa , they abandon the constraints of logic completely.

Of course, the rather uninspired and cliché-ridden plot does not help. Lastly, there were some particularly poorly executed visual effects, especially in the first part. As a result of all these shortcomings, the film felt unnecessarily long, and at times plain tedious.

[therewillbeblus]

Whether in Fury Road we were riding at the very edge of believability, in Furiosa , they abandon the constraints of logic completely.

How so, comparatively?

[Yakushima]

Whether in Fury Road we were riding at the very edge of believability, in Furiosa , they abandon the constraints of logic completely.

How so, comparatively?

Off the top of my head,

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Furiosa escapes her captors after loosing her arm, but it doesn't seem to slow her down much, despite loss of blood. She builds her prosthetic arm with no prior skills. Her hair does not catch fire even when engulfed by it. In this installment most characters breathe freely while in a sand or dust storm, while in Fury Road they at least took care to cover their faces. All the produce looks like it was purchased in a supermarket, not grown hydroponically in a cave. All vehicles and sophisticated weapons seem to be in top working order despite sand, lack of infrastructure and very few skilled technicians still around. The chases and fighting scenes in Fury Road at least appeared plausible, while in Furiosa everything looked cartoonishly exaggerated.

Again, I am not saying this was the major issue with this film, just something that made me slightly less invested in the proceedings. Still plenty to enjoy here.

[therewillbeblus]

A few observations from a second viewing:

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-Upon a first watch, I judged the first scene as we've been trained to do: Furiosa's friend tells her they've pushed the limits too far, they get in a tough spot, tragedies ensue - and so I assumed Furiosa would trace these back to her own childhood foolishness, stew in that guilt, etc. But this time I realized that, actually, Furiosa witnessing the scavengers was crucial and good, as they had to protect the Green Place at all costs. So her move to cut the gas tubes was a trained lesson for if she saw strangers in their space, and nobody else was around to support (though, I guess, why not just blow the whistle earlier?) - I know a lot of emphasis is placed on the child as necessary for Dementus to believe, but I don't buy it. They could've convinced them to go looking easily.

-The final confrontation doesn't entirely work for me, even if the Leone comparisons do make me like it more. Though what's striking is how child-like Furiosa's schema of possibility is, truly expecting (at least partly, emotionally) in that moment for Dementus to be able to give her her life back, and his response being one that's organically patriarchal. In contrast to the earlier, forced fatherly role of simple protector, his engagement with her here is messy, complex (insofar as feeding a child part adult concepts all at once), but genuine. It's a situation that neither of them want, at least on these terms and with these available outcomes, but this is how he bestows and she receives important parental advice.

-Dementus, too, is preoccupied by "fairness" - which leads to a drive that is, as usual, grounded in emotional vs logical stakes. He needs the Hobbesian worldview of 'gaining power through strength or dying' to be accurate, even if that means he himself is propagating harm he's aware is the cause of his own sorrow, because the alternative (to believe in charity, that it's possible to have again) would leave space to confront the unfairness of his own loved ones lost. This makes him a child in his own way (his behavioral responses to grabbing the stuffed animal are overtly childish) - to be unable to psychologically allow others to experience charity and goodnaturedness when he was robbed of that gift. It's not necessarily 'original' but it is a welcome subtext for a villain in this series.

[Mr Sausage]

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-Upon a first watch, I judged the first scene as we've been trained to do: Furiosa's friend tells her they've pushed the limits too far, they get in a tough spot, tragedies ensue - and so I assumed Furiosa would trace these back to her own childhood foolishness, stew in that guilt, etc. But this time I realized that, actually, Furiosa witnessing the scavengers was crucial and good, as they had to protect the Green Place at all costs. So her move to cut the gas tubes was a trained lesson for if she saw strangers in their space, and nobody else was around to support (though, I guess, why not just blow the whistle earlier?) - I know a lot of emphasis is placed on the child as necessary for Dementus to believe, but I don't buy it. They could've convinced them to go looking easily.

Given this, it's odd that Miller chose to frame this as a biblical allegory, Furiosa picking forbidden fruit and then immediately being expelled forever from Eden. Yet guilt plays so small a part.

I guess one way to read her choices is that she didn't blow the alarm first (it was a dog whistle the men wouldn't've heard, I think), or send her buddy off for help while keeping watch. She went to do it all herself, have her own adventure, and it cost her.

[therewillbeblus]

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Yeah I made the same point to my friend last night re: Miller's framing. It almost feels like a psych-out without a payoff of revelation. Kinda strange, but yes I think that's the idea, and the second incident of Furiosa disobeying her mom and running towards her is such a human moment but another example of trying to 'do it herself'. I like how Miller allows a lack of blame and self-blame within the narrative (aside from the obvious mom-sparing-woman flub, but even that is affirmed based on the empathy that's left in the world - a key theme to counter Dementus' ethos), which is a charitable, welcome gift in such an unforgiving milieu.

[Mr Sausage]

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the second incident of Furiosa disobeying her mom and running towards her is such a human moment but another example of trying to 'do it herself'.

This is key to Furiosa's character: unlike Dementus, who runs from people and himself, Furiosa runs to people, never abandoning them. She does it throughout the movie, and it usually ends in sorrow, but it's what drives her ultimate success in Fury Road. Unlike Dementus and so much of the world around her, she affirms others.

[therewillbeblus]

Exactly, "hope" is the key - a compromised version under a dark worldview, sure - but she has learned that both are possible, as evidenced by the way the Green Place population operates as both kind and nurturing, and relentlessly protective and survivalist when necessary.

[Mr Sausage]

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It's also funny how much of a big dumb baby Dementus is. He's not just that, but his temper tantrums, his whining, his sulking, his abstract accusations of unfairness whenever something or other gets taken away, his endless need for soothing, even the play acting behind his theatricality--he's just a big baby. It's an interesting contrast to the cunning grotesquerie of Immortan Joe to have this oversized child riding around the wasteland like it's one big game, perpetually upset whenever he doesn't win. Furiosa's befuddlement at just how much depth Dementus doesn't have, at how open-faced and transparent he is, was a great touch at the end, because she herself is nothing but interiority and complication. And while she has spent decades pretending to be uncaring and unfeeling, it's actually Dementus in his shallowness that is numb and obdurate, impervious to physical sensation and holding the deepest emotions in the most superficial ways. He is all surface and transparency. She can't get anything from Dementus at the end because there's nothing really to get, and he knows it and is puzzled himself at why she hasn't grasped this.

They're both projecting at the end: he thinks she's like him, numb, hollowed out, and superficial, whereas she thinks he's like her, hiding depths of planning and deliberation. So he's bewildered that she can't simply change her emotions on a dime and drive off for some new sensation, and she's at a loss to explain the absence of judgement or calculation in anything Dementus does. A lifetime of robbing her of everything she loved most all because he was having a sulk (twice!) makes no sense to her considering the scale of its impact on her. Surely those decisions must've meant something to him, too--and they didn't, he was just caught up in some superficial emotion and acting out.

Given all that, I did like that one of the potential endings had her plant a seed in Dementus, symbolically filling him with life.

[therewillbeblus]

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That's a good reading. I do think Dementus has some tact - he's smart when he doesn't let his emotions overtake him, down to the spontaneous logic to split up in the end. But he does let his grandiose emotionality take hold often enough, overplaying his hands with self-constructed 'enemies', and struggling with leadership, where it becomes his undoing. However, this is a milieu that supports regressed functions in many respects - Immortan Joe succeeds in part because he has improved skills, but also a society and constructs in place that protect his survivalist impulses and allow him to rest with his prefrontal cortex. He also has a great sense of character - sizing up Furiosa and believing her based on her presentation, which mirrors Dementus' same skill in the beginning when he had the small fortress and life was manageable. Dementus is just out of his element in the wasteland on a larger scale. As a one-man army, he'd probably be like Mad Max (his character is basically Max if he decided to build an army to receive a diluted form of love he lost), out there surviving independently for a lot longer.

[Mr Sausage]

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Dementus is definitely clever, but as you say, it's the cleverness of the moment. He can come up with ingenious tactics even on the fly, but strategizing is beyond him because it requires long-term planning. Immortan Joe can subjugate impulse to goals, like when he decided against killing Dementus outright in favour of working with him and finding an angle later. Or when he decided against storming over to gas town the moment it seemed on fire in favour of a trick of his own, followed by a long-term war his planning and control was sure to win. Dementus, apparently used to dealing with idiots, is the one who barrels into a new place and declares war without bothering to learn a single thing about it, or crafts very obvious plots and is quickly satisfied when the other side seems to be tricked.

Furiosa is really the child of both Immortan Joe and Dementus. The latter determines her path, but the former gives her her skills and drive. That's quite a feminist narrative, women determined by horrible fathers.

Nice observations re: Dementus and Max. I never made the connection before, but, yeah, they share the same inciting incident, and of course demented is a synonym for mad. Dementus might be the obverse of Max: loss driven outward rather than inward, demanding more rather than settling for less, and choosing largeness and display over minimalism and hiding. But both respond with flight and emotional flattening. Furiosa's story across two films is having to deal with the same dude twice, just from different angles.