Imperator Furiosa drives a War Rig, fixes the Rig from the outside while it is on the move, rescues five women from the cruel Immortan Joe. You’d think Imperator Furiosa was a man. You’d be wrong. Imperator Furiosa is played by Charlize Theron and is the bigger hero of Mad Max: Fury Road than the titular hero played by Tom Hardy.
I fixed an early morning girl date for Fury Road and walked into the hall ready for a high-octane action movie, like the original Mad Max films I remembered watching ages ago. When we came out of the hall two hours later we were riding high on not just one of the most flawless, thrilling and breathless action films in the last decade but on the fact that it packed a whopping feminist punch.
The feminism
George Miller has given us one of the most standout female characters on film, a character who is Max’s equal in every way, in some ways even better, but who is definitely more human than Max.
Furiosa not only drives the War Rig, it is her machine and she knows it and can make it work better than any of the men. Yep, Max drives off with the Rig at one point only to have it stall because Furiosa keyed it that way. She doesn’t scream or order people around but takes control calmly and quietly. There is a scene where Max is shooting at one of the pursuing vehicles and has only one bullet left. Furiosa quietly comes up behind him and lays a hand on his shoulder. He turns around, hands her the gun and becomes the sniper stand while she takes the shot and hits the target. What makes this scene even better is that Max doesn’t blink at a woman taking over and that the woman in question is not an Amazonian warrior but an amputee with a mechanical arm.
Throughout the chase, Furiosa is the one calling the shots. Even at the end, when they meet up with the matriarchal Vuvalini tribe, the women make the decision, giving Max the option of joining them. What sets Furiosa apart from Max is that she kills only when threatened whereas Max has a rage and violence inside him that makes him far more volatile.
The movie also plants a solid fist in the solar plexus of patriarchy, exposing its worst through how the women are treated — larger, older women are milked and younger prettier women are used as breeders, and both are property — and how Joe’s men, the War Boys, think that real men don’t feel emotions and glory is only to be found in dying.
The movie passes the Bechdel Test — in the film there must be at least two women, with names, who have a conversation that is not about boys — with flying colours, not surprising given that Vagina Monologues writer Eve Ensler was a consultant on this film. Even the wives being waif-thin, skimpily-clad and model-like had a reason. Since Joe was looking for a perfect baby, it made sense that he would choose wives who were flawless. And the wives were not just cargo, each played a crucial part in their escape, from making the choice to flee to using themselves to protect Furiosa from being shot (Joe wouldn’t shoot the breeders carrying his babies).
Say less, Speak volumes
For an action film, Fury Road has very little dialogue. Characters are introduced and fleshed out without voiceovers or dialogues. There are long patches of silence where either there is action, or the players say it all through their acting. The despondency and desperation of a post-apocalyptic world is shown through stunning imagery alone.
Leep things simple
Just like the film is unabashedly feminist, it is also unapologetically simple. It is an extended chase sequence with the story being simply that of a group of people trying to escape the clutches of a monstrous person, without plots and sub-plots and sub-sub-plots like other action films. And unlike other action films, even through its linear storytelling you see the changes that each person goes through in the process. It develops even the minor characters — some of whom you see on screen for less than 10 minutes — such that when cars crash or someone is injured you actually feel for them.
Mad and magical
If you have seen the original Mad Max films (Road Warrior being the best!) you would expect insanely modified cars (one had an entire concert set-up with a guy hanging from it playing an electric guitar that throws flames), gorgeous desert landscapes, colourful explosions, bloody action, flying bodies. What you also get here is a nerve-wracking, two-hour chase sequence, that has so many spectacular moments that it is difficult to pick just one.
