Almost ten years after the bustling Fury Road, George Miller returns to asphalt with a prequel dedicated to the character of Furiosa, highlighted in 2015 in the unexpected come-back of the franchise Mad Max. Cursed director never really made the box office take off despite his indelible trace left in the post-nuke imagination, George Miller took a new turn with Furiosa. How does this new variation of myth fit into the heart of a saga that has passed through generations over almost fifty years? Far from duplicating his predecessors, the last born of Wasteland Is he on the road?
Contents
The Fifth Horseman of Revelation
New movie, new era? Exit Charlize Theron for the role of Furiosa, this is Anya Taylor-Joy which has been chosen to embody the youth of the Pretorian of Immortan Joe. Rather than a simple follow-up to the unequal Fury Road, the Australian director preferred to opt for the form of prequel, a perilous exercise that fills the dead corners of heroin history at the origin of the citadel revolution. By returning 15 years back, George Miller begins its story just before the collapse of the golden age. For the first images of this origin story, we discover the young Furiosa extending her arm towards a glowing apple perched at the top of a tree. It is the forbidden fruit that will condemn the Men of Paradise lost as demanded by the genesis of Adam and Eve. Nothing would have happened without this casual gesture.
This Green Earth, oasis of hope in the middle of the desert, Fury Road It was already grieving at the end of a race-prosecution conceived as a complete revolution in the literal sense of the term (see article of Monday morning on repair logic). A return to the tragic conclusion: this abundant territory has long been consumed by the desert, a metaphor for humanity's failure. Like all these characters broken and presented as « already dead » by Dementus, a new demiurge avatar in Wasteland, Furiosa will wage a fierce struggle to satisfy his thirst for revenge.
Customs of historical references of Ben-Hur to piracy by making a detour through the fictions of our time as ConanMiller draws an odyssey in five chapters. The last part, entitled « The Fifth Horseman of Revelation » constitutes the junction between Furiosa and Fury Road, the key of voute where ends revenge and begins redemption. It is also a reference to the eponymous SF book by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, which told the story of a nuclear blackmail.
Singing that one finds with Dementus's poker hit that threatens to blow up the citadel if he did not get satisfaction. More « classic » in its structure that Fury Road, Furiosa scrupulously resumes the key stages of monomythe by Joseph Campbell, even more so than his predecessor who threw us – without foreplay – his deluge of action completely uncomplexed (but never deprecated).
In this black satire, Miller extends his universe of characters straight out of a storyboard of comics. He included Dementus among these warlords at the head of authoritarian proto-societies. The latter are animated by a cult of personality that tends towards the religious in the War Boys, ready to sacrifice for this Holy Father who promises them the Valhalla. In Dementus, power retention is built in negative with a caricatural and chaotic vision of anarchy. Dementus is a pathetic leader surpassed by his own demeasurement. It is the order that is lacking to his band and, conversely, it is freedom that is lacking to the troops of Immortan Joe. Dementus is here played by Chris Hemsworth, unrecognizable grimmed with a prominent nose and which fortunately makes us forget his role as Thor.
He is an ambiguous sado-maso leader, a leader who is in doubt and who bores himself in the face of barbarism as he slides one of the key sequences of the film to understand the psychology of this monster despite him. As he built himself on a trauma, he shaped Furiosa identically; He does not hesitate to tell him that this is the reason why he killed his mother in front of the girl. Furiosa will also borrow his white cape stained with red before executing it.
At the citadel, however, dedication is total. « I的m going to die historic, on the fury road » proudly claims Nux, one of the War Boys defeated by three times and having changed camp in Fury Road. It is no longer even an adverb (Historically), it is totally an epithet adjective (historical) which is mobilised here. It is the action of dying that is associated with the historicity of the gesture. These 763 soldiers are ready to give their lives in a finger-clap for their spiritual leader Immortan Joe. « I am your Redeemer » already shouted the patriarch to the crowd. In Fury RoadThe fate of his wives locked under a dome behind a safe was discovered. The most fertile were matrices to the offspring of the great leader, while the « deficiencies »understand the unfortunate who gave birth to stillborn or disabled children, were condemned to become dairy.
Capitalism is dead, living capitalism
This pyramidal structure of power recalls the conclusion of the science fiction novel Washing. After the collapse of modern society, Barjavel opted for a conclusion to reactionary relents: a patriarchal society dedicated to the repopulation of the Earth around one and the same man. In his latest act entitled The PatriarchEvery day of the week, a different woman gave her body to Francis. The leader then granted a kind of right to repopulate the Earth. « Because men are men, that is, beings with whom evil dominates good » wrote Barjavel. It is the Talion law that governs Wasteland. Miller's is a rape society where young wives have no choice but to satisfy this reproductive program where inbreeding and radioactivity fight to ensure a viable offspring. The desire no longer needs to be here. In return for the services of their uterus, these « preferred » The rest of the population is condemned to poverty and quasi-cannibalism.
At Dementus too, no gaspi; Human organic waste is recycled into boudins. A pound « Refined » reserved at the top of the basket, the lowest of the ladder feeding with what they find under the hand, like Max who beheaded a two-headed lizard in the first seconds of Fury Road. Wasteland is a crippled world governed by cripples. The codes were atomized to mutate society into a form of nihilistic dystopia. This is also what needs to be understood from the reference to « half dead » to whom nuclear war has divided life expectancy by two.
Where Fury Road showed us the lack of water and the paroxystic consecration of black gold, this second part reveals a luxenproletariat in the throes of hunger riots in Petroville. At the citadel, some even cultivate the worms born of the flesh in rot. Under the earth of the impregnable fortress of the despot, it is this infamous salor where the corpses are used to raise worms. Miller goes much further than Trocville from Mad Max 3, where pig feces were simply used to produce fuel by exploiting the labor force of slaves and other scraps of society hurled six feet underground. These are the small hands at the bottom of the ladder, « people who are nothing » that allow open-air life by putting hands in shit. Ironically, Wasteland is also the occasion of a second chance. Empress of Mad Max 3 played by Tina Turner confided that she was nothing before the great war.
In Miller's universe, the outbreak of nuclear war conceived as the Ground Zero Wasteland never extinguished capitalism. On the contrary, capitalist hydra is never completely defeated. There is no possible victory against the invisible hand, only accommodation. Since Mad Max 2Miller gives to see capitalism in its most unbridled form: libertarianism. We find this abâtardy freedom, enclosing the individual in so many deluge dress styles proper to the apocalypse, understood as the end of times and therefore the end of moral injunctions. The state is never a question in itself.
Even in the mythology of Valhalla born from the ashes of the old world, we find traces of our consumer society. On several occasions, the War Boys refer to « Agua Cola » and « McFestin's table », barely veiled combination of Coca Cola and McDonalds. This desire of another world is nothing other than the memory of capitalism before the apocalypse. That we don't misunderstand, even after Fury RoadThere is no reason to be in Wasteland. This « other place » is by nature inaccessible as is the island of Thomas Moore's book, protected by an indomitable sea and stunning mountains. In Wasteland, utopia is strictly materially and conceptually impossible. Never, since all hope is immediately subverted by the hatred and reproduction of the patterns of domination of the old world.
Carnival of the Freaks and its fetishes
In Mad MaxWe were already discovering this horde of Freaks. There's a walking circus side in Miller's movie theater, which recalls The Parade of the Monsters (1932) by Tod Browning (see issue of BLAST which was consecrated to him). Many stuntmen are also used to fairs. The saga Mad Max is always overwhelmed by margins. The ass-de-jatte and mutilated are the new standards of this post-apo world where normality is almost suspicious. Max himself warned us during the come-back of the franchise in 2015: « Who's the craziest? Me... or all the others? »
Miller operates a large gap from the myth of the wild child (pushed to the extreme in the third opus) to the figures of bad boys to the queer airs of the second opus. We naturally think of all these vagabonds, the proudly exhibited nipples, with their Iroquoise cut and the body covered in leather long before Matrix. We also remember the death to the boomerang of the Epheb and probable lover of Toadie, punished for defying the authority of Lord Hummungus and his gang of drunken marauders.
Leather and disguise are part of a punk carnival that is unique at the end of the world and widely taken over by zombie films where each despot grows its own fetish. Just think of Negan and his studded bat to convince him. Fire films Romero (1949-2017) They also apes the society of consumption and the violence of men before that of the dead-living according to a reading dear to Hobbes more than in Rousseau. We find these « still alive » And their fetishes at Max, Furiosa like Dementus.
Every film has its antagonist. In the first, it was Toe Cutter or the Surgeon, the pervert, distant cousin ofOrange Mechanical, which will end the exorbitant eyes (miller's brand), disintegrated under a semi-trailer. The actor will also take on another role, that of Immortan Joe more than 35 years later, which reinforces the idea that all these neurotic characters are in some way substitutable. It is today, on the one hand, Dementus, archetype of redbeard with changing cape and teddy bear harnessed in the back; on the other hand, Immortan and his plastic plastron coupled with his respiratory apparatus that recalls Dark Vador. One could still mention the Octoboss and its devil horns. More generally, it is the revenge of the marginals and outlaw against Max, figure of the former cop, therefore of legitimate violence.
The revolution itself is never the result of a collective initially formed, but rather of the sum of individuals with pruning trajectories and opportunistic alliances. In Fury Road as Furiosa, chase races are never just straight lines drawn in the middle of the desert; encounters, the fruit of chance; the revolution, a favorable situation born of chaos. That is to say how little the direction matters since the drivers are most often busy defending the wargate than driving the aircraft, a real armored frigate and overarmed. We don't organize the revolution. The Great Evening is a matter of chance through multiple crises that must be grasped at the right time.
The Earth, even sorry, is taken over by the warlords of Petroville, Trocville, Bulletfarm or the Citadel. A trading system focused on rudimentary trading and bartering is being established, but the concentration of power and wealth remains a challenge. It is a feudal system focused on strength and domination through the exchange of raw materials. Even men are a commodity like others. In Fury Road, the exploitation of the bodies is total: the blood of the globulars, the uterus of surrogate mothers, milk drawn from the breasts of the dairy and the life of the War Boys ready to sacrifice themselves. The reproduction itself becomes counter-nature. It is privatized for the benefit of a caste and has to turn in a single closed circuit. In Furiosa Finally, even the dead have value with the breeding of worms as mentioned above.
A congenital fable or revenge of cripples
Looking forward to expanding the universe of Wasteland, Miller's latest film tells us more about the brothers Rictus and Scrotus, two of the sons of Immortan whose name ironically refers to the scrotum and rectum, so that it is no longer known whether his sons came out of a cloac or uterus. The first is a mass of muscles inversely proportional to his intelligence. He is the youngest son of Immortan and the figure of the rapist par excellence as already shown Fury Road. In Furiosa, punctuated by many ellipses over fifteen years, it is his fetishist and paedophile side that appears when he puts his hand in the girl's hair and takes her away at night.
Scrotus, on the other hand, is a bit sharper but physically distorted by so many congenital brewings. The third, Corpus Colossus, is the eye of Immortan Joe. It is he who searches the horizon with his telescope, an object inseparable from the saga Mad Max. Although he is heavily handicapped, he is the Emperor's brain and consul. It is also called Corpus Calossum, a term that explicitly refers to the region of the human brain that links the left and right brain hemispheres. It is therefore etymologically the balance between Rictus and Scrotus.
At Miller, these characters are usually reduced to a single function or essence. These protagonists are never whole. On the contrary, they are systematically « Amputees » of something or totally affected by a tare that they seek to absorb: the idiot Rictus by his strength, Colossus by his ability to analyze, Max as a wandering soul after the savage murder of his family loosely murdered in the first part. Finally, Furiosa remained, driven by revenge following her abduction, as she chose to show Miller at the opening of her film. We're caught by the avenging look of Anya Taylor-Joy in the role of the preacher. His features evolve by overprinting digital effects on his face, from childhood to adulthood, to remind Charlize Theron... Bluffant!
Among the antagonists, this essentialist separation between strength and intelligence was already found. This is the case in Mad Max 3 with the colossus The Blaster and his master played by an actor with dwarfism. Max renounced completing this mountain of muscles when he discovered that he was disabled. Thirty years later, it is Fury Road Miller refused to give death to Corpus Calossum. Infirmity should have been killed by one of the dairy mothers at the end of the feature film. This end had even been shot with a dozen shots until Miller retracted against all expectations. He was also the last surviving member of the Joe family, Miller being one of the directors who opened the doors rather than closing them.
Furiosa, a feminist dog?
While it is not fond of contemporary bias sometimes reducing the « Strong woman equals feminism » It must be recognised that the choice of a female casting as the motor of the action of the Fury Road radically slices in a landscape essentially rigged by men in the 1970s-80s. At that time, the woman was most often a victim rescued by large oiled arms. This was the pattern agreed in most of the productions of action films up to the iconoclastic eruption of Ellen Ripley in 1979 with Alien, the eighth passenger. In the first Mad Max, the loving and devoted woman's model is put to death; In the second, one of the first women who appears on the screen is immediately naked and raped under the eye of the spectator. And we will only have to wait for the third opus, dedicated to a much younger audience with its frame between Peter Pan and The Little Prince, to see a less tragic fate given to the female gentleman.
However, once in power, women possessed by the bait of power are no more virtuous than men. Mad Max 3 It has been shown in a candid manner. And no doubt the end of Fury Road who led Furiosa to the top of the Citadel does not announce the next days that sing. Will a patriarchal society in the matriarchate, the former Pretorian who shouts in the crowd that she is Furiosa, give up the monopoly of violence exercised by those she has defeated?
monumental risk taking, Fury Road opts for a model of forced revolt against a patriarchal society at its paroxysm. Here women will save each other. When Furiosa exfiltrates the citadel with the brides of Immortan, each of them is symbolically dressed in a white sheet. There is clearly the will to detangle a largely masculine universe from the original trilogy. And it's so much better that the care given to the characters flies the expectations of the fan of the bottled saga to testosterone.
It will escape no one that the name of the character of Furiosa refers to Greek mythology and its three furies repeated in The Divine Comedy. These three sisters, daughters of the primordial divinities Ouranos (heaven) and Gaia (earth), lived in the depths of Hell. Slight (the Haine), Tisiphone (the Vengeance) and Alecto (the Implacable) permeat the character of Furiosa. Among the Greeks, they were the guardians of order and pursued without respite those who had broken the rules, whether in the world of the living or the world of the dead. Ovid called them « sisters born of the night, terrible deities and without forgiveness ». This is exactly the figure of Furiosa whose sole objective was born from the trauma of her abduction and the murder of her mother. His last words will be Furiosa's unique leitmotiv for the next fifteen years: « Take the time it takes, but promise me you'll come home. ». Furiosa will religiously preserve the seeds entrusted to her by her mother, there again open axis for the future of the saga. The adult child will follow his mother's final wishes methodically.
Note in passing that if this prequel elucidates the origins of Furiosa, there is never a question of the father, if not by his absence. It is also the meaning to give to the words of his kidnappers. One asks him who hunts them « Is your father tracking us? » as if a hunter were of the unthinkable order. In the dystic Fury Road as Furiosa which should be considered as a single work, man is originally synonymous with predation, so the first exchanges with his mentor tortured by Dementus as those with Max are always marked by conflict. In addition, contrary to Fury Road which was only a few days apart, Furiosa lasts for about 15 years. And if the night appeared symbolically only at the end of Fury Road, it eclipses the burning desert sun several times in the introduction of Furiosa. Men fear fury and all those who cross the road to Furiosa will be condemned to a certain death.
In Greek mythology, furies personify the curse and are responsible for punishing the crimes of their perpetrators. This is all the meaning to give Furiosa's ordeal to Dementus, even if Miller could have exercised less graphic restraint to represent these abuses inflicted on her torturer (and « father » Rapist?) youthful. Let us beware that the delicate issue of the exploitation visas from which his first films suffered could have played in the equation. The contours of the oppression of the young Furiosa will remain at the discretion of the more or less cruel imagination of the spectator. Miller would also have given up showing the scene where Furiosa ripped his tongue off, preferring to content himself with the words reported by The History Man : « She took away her voice ». The death of Dementus is announced almost prophetically by the same counter, while the group of the deposed king is dislocated in the desert. Another sign of the construction of a modern mythology, Dementus asks Furiosa if she will have enough to become a myth.
The Purgatory told by History Men
While the end of the world is expected by some as the occasion of a great general reset, Miller's vision is otherwise more cynical. « Misguided humanity is terrorizing itself. As the world unfolds around us. How can you deal with your cruelty? » It is in these terms that the narrator and the History Man question us in the first seconds of Furiosa. On which side would the scourge of the balance bend in case of a nuclear big bang? Would man liberated from his past lead the same mechanics of violence or would it be the occasion to sublimate him? Revelation or apotheosis ?
In Greek mythology (again and always), the apotheosis of a hero meant his admission among the gods of Olympus as was the case with Hercules. Under the Roman Empire, it will be an official deification ceremony of the Emperor before or after his death. By extension, among Catholics, the apotheosis will be synonymous with ascension and posthumous glorification of those called saints. One could multiply parallels with religion that is intimately linked to frankness. If today one tends to reduce the apocalypse to the only end of the world, it is omitting a substantial part of its etymology.
Same prefix as for apotheosis, apocalypse refers to the « Revelation of God ». There is behind this word the notion of unveiling which is paradoxically found in the catastrophe announced as in the apotheosis. At Miller's, we find all this semantic ambiguity with its broken heroes who will pass from revenge to redemption, from the errance of the fugitive to the final sacre of Fury Road. Yet hope remains a mistake like the cruelly coward Max in Furiosa in Fury Road. Madness arises from disappointment, itself born of broken dreams:
« You know, hop is a mistake. If you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- you can-- »
To understand the Wasteland that will inspire all postapocalyptic works after the 1975 film is to understand its spiritual and metaphorical dimension. It is an emotional desert on the model of Purgatory, in the sense of place « that purifies ». The desert will partly purge Max from his madness and for Furiosa from his quest for revenge. They are united by mourning and it is also the meaning to give Max's suicidal plan to return to storm the Citadel: « At least in this direction, maybe we can... Together... fall on some kind of redemption ». By making the opposite path, it is an introspective return that our torn heroes realize about the acts they have committed. Already in Mad Max 2The narrator on the end of life told us about Max's loss and his coming rebirth:
« In this vortex of degeneration, ordinary man was sprayed. Like Max, Max the warrior. He lost everything in a twist. He was only a shadow of himself. An arid man, annihilated. A man haunted by the demons of the past. A man crisscrossing the desert. And there, in this devastated place, he rediscovered the truth »
One myth to another
Miller fascinates us with his prodigious ability to articulate myths over nearly fifty years as if each of his heroes and antagonists were declinations of the traumatized Max of the first part. Not only by these many winks (moving sands, vehicles, telescopic bezel, handcuffed characters, whistle, etc..) but because he manages to make these stories speak to each other. This « Witness » that the War Boys religiously scream is other than a resurgence of the very first monologue of Mad Max 1975, when the eagle of the road, in the middle delirium, said at the wheel of his car: « Do you see me, ToeCutter ? Do you see me man? I am the Nightrider ». This is an illustration of the need for the subfiber to be and to witness us. This mechanism of testimony of ordinary men aspiring for posterity crosses the entire saga. One could also refer to crows, birds that announce death and revenge: a detail dear to the franchise of Mad Max to Fury Road.
icing on the cake, Miller even manages to weave unlikely links with other foreign films in the universe of Mad Max. The old tattooed man, History Man of the Fury Road as Furiosa, is played by George Shevtsov, who already performed a similar role as storyteller in the filmmaker's latest film, 3000 years to wait. With the disappointing start of Furiosa who has difficulty passing the fifth in the box office, the future of Mad Max is uncertain. At 79, will the master of Wasteland succeed in pursuing his work?
Chromatic Narration and Kinetic Energy
FUry Road and Furiosa are two works carried by different narratives and directed. Less scaly and more focused on building a myth, Furiosa is complementary. The debate that burned down social media against the outrageous use of CGIs is a trompe-l'oeil. In the direction of photography, between the two films there was a passage of torch John Seale to Simon Duggan. In addition to the financial problems of a pharaonic project such as Furiosa, this change partly explains the less « realistic » effects and animations applied to character models. Simon Duggan had also worked on the 300 which feels in the style displayed on the screen, like this effect of motion blur which makes the movements so fluid. Yes, some special effects sting their eyes, but nothing to erode the pleasure of the film that will certainly win its nobility letters later, as the previous ones were. Mad Max, they are also shunned by the public.
If Fury Road had a picture probably more « crado »There is a love of saturated colours among the two directors of photography. The Garden of Eden Furiosa adopts a palette of colors where green radiates our pupils. The sand of the desert contrasts with the blue sky that announces the coming storm with clouds as close to the ground. Fury Road has on this point our preference as the images succeed in communicating strong emotions throughout the film. One could speak plainly of chromatic narration with a blatant evolution of sand and orange tones towards the oil blue that heralds disillusionment. The implausible storm of half of the film is, however, the very evocation of the apocalypse and deluge.
Miller's signature since the first Mad Max : the slightly accelerated sequences that can steal the young audience today. This process old as The Light Brothers allows to give an illusion of speed during races-prosecutions. It is a staging device that recalls the silent cinema. In FuriosaMiller uses this technique to represent the time that passes when Dementus attends the punishment of the mentor of the pretortian, dragged on a motorcycle until sunset. A memory image dear to Far West where horses would have been replaced by cylinders. The mimics of Dementus then take an unexpected guignolesque side, accentuating his body tics and his annoyance at this sinister spectacle which turns in circles and ends up making him tired. Dementus is like caught up in his own cruelty. This is literally the only time our heroes do not advance on a straight path. What we lose in realism, we gain it power thousand in symbolic. On several occasions, Miller had the opportunity to proclaim his love of silent cinema:
« I think all movies should be silent. All information should be visual. The movie needs sound, no talk. His story is told with images, editing and sound. I don't like the word "action", I prefer "movement" or "energy". »
For illustration, the action scenes like those of Bulletfarm's capture show this maestria and how much the dystic Fury Road / Furiosa It's different from the standards of the genre. By a clever game of cross-eyed eyes, the camera makes the constant shuttle of the predictor Jack to his apprentice. The cutting is chiseled and supported by short sequencing planes to the slightly fluttering camera. We live and feel all the intensity of the shooting without a single word or music. It's as if they were communicating by silence. « We tell his story with pictures » Dixit Miller.
Dementus will then impose itself at the heart of this silent dialogue; The camera then navigates from one character to another with a rocket running on the screen as its common denominator. The first projectile returns us first to Jack, then the second to Furiosa. It's the same logic at work with the flame-thrower plane, « pivot » From Jack to Furiosa. No dead time should weigh in the picture. We find the essence of a video game like GTA V where the action shifted from one subject to another in a fraction of seconds Ingame. Or some of the cinematics of Death Stranding -Hideo Kojima, comrade displayed Australian director. Allegory carries the images.
It is by this « ping pong » Miller managed to connect these heroes rather than words. This grammar of image and movement, it was already found in Fury Road between Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy. These are the weapons that guide the eye of the camera. The wargate and the vehicles are like the characters, wounded and systematically raided to keep the course. Whatever it takes. We find this logic of repair mentioned above for machines and men whose fate is bound by asphalt. Bodies and moving objects are repaired as a collision ship whose holds would take water under gunfire.
Miller's cinema is a permanent praise for the movement, a staging that never leaves time for the spectator to take his breath, except at the end of the intrigue where the percussions start deafening. Miller never forgets the origin of the word cinema from ancient Greek Kinsma either « movement ». Each detail will be echoed later, like a painting under construction. The race-continuation is the engine of a forward leak and de/reconstruction of the characters. In short, we are at light years of the first degree of sequences of a Fast & Furious.
Der des Der?
More than ever, Miller seeks to root his universe in the genesis of Man and the battles that passed through the centuries. In FuriosaMiller evokes fictional wars as real in demonstration of man's evil purpose: world wars, the seven-day war, oil, water, etc.. Never forget that the first Mad Max released in 1979, six years after the oil shock that shaken American supremacy and triggered a global crisis following the declaration of an embargo by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). This disgust of war and the question of the hero can also be resonated by rehearsing the burlesque discourse of Fifi Macaffee, fantasy commander of Max's police brigade in the very first film : « I hear people don't believe in heroes anymore. Fuck them. You and I will resurrect the heroes! »
Fifi is filmed in a double-dive, a hand-watering and avocado cloth tied around the neck, giving a staggered seal to the ensemble. This probably the most hallucinating sequence of the whole saga is to be taken in the second degree. Even Max doesn't believe in this gibberish. There is no doubt that Miller broke the fourth wall by addressing directly to the spectator, announcing by the same token the nail of the show: the crazy final race-continuation still stinging today.
To understand this obsession with fallen heroes and the importance of sacrifice at Miller, it may be necessary to put his first film back in its historical context, four years after the end of the Vietnam War. This military fiasco cast doubt on American public opinion under imperialist propaganda. This myth of the liberating warrior against the red enemy is swept away by the American debacle, which took nearly 60,000 Americans, even though the massacre of the Vietnamese had for its part the scope of genocide, as in the Korean War. Ho Chi Minh He himself threatened the Americans:
« You can kill ten of my men for each of your people we kill. But even so, you will lose and we will win. »
This presage resulted in 400,000 tons of napalm, 75 million litres of orange agent, hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and one of the most deadly wars since World War II with more than two million Vietnamese civilians who died in addition to the monstrous military casualties. For what collective memory? This total logic of warlords who give themselves an arm of iron without respite, we find it at work in Furiosa and the war of the forty days when the dead are suggested in piles of corpses by an accelerated montage. It is also the meaning to give to the speech of the Eat-PersonWhen Dementus seeks to take the citadel and discovers, astonished, that the War Boys are suicide bombers ready to give their lives for Immortan Joe.
More than just a great show that redefines the race-following each episode, the saga Mad Max denounces the folly of war and the bestiality of men. « For reasons now forgotten, two tribes waged war and set fire to them. » deplores the History Man of Mad Max 2 between two black and white archive images. If hope is a mistake in a world governed by domination and Darwinism, the perfect end of Fury Road It was a distant time. It is the eternal quest of Man to purge himself from his morbid passions and become better as the first History Man already said. The myth of humanity in all its splendor and decadence.
« Where must we go... we who wanter this Wasteland on search of our better goods ? »
Trailer of Furiosa
Technical tests of the saga to (re)read on MaG
Podcast « MaG Max » on the saga
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