We are in a dystopian futuristic version of Australia where the sprawling plains have degenerated into miles and miles of radioactive wasteland. We know this place. The, slightly clumsy, subtitle (“A Mad Max Saga”) informs of this. It is a prequel and spin-off to George Miller’s 2015 “Mad Max: Fury Road”, the fourth in that decades long franchise. The deserts are familiar. The imagery conjuring sweltering heat is familiar. The nihilism of the people we meet is familiar. We know this world. But there is no Mad Max here. There is a Mad Furiosa, though, but she is not the same as when saw her last.
“Furiosa” is, nominally, a prequel. The new film builds on the mythos of the Furiosa we met in the last film, contextualising and even clarifying some of what we learned about there. But much of Miller’s story here (co-written with Nico Lathouris) feels ambivalent about building too direct a bridge to the last version of her we saw, or of turning this film into a too familiar “woman in a man’s world” version of an action story. Rising star Anya Taylor-Joy’s much discussed casting as Young Furiosa earned a great deal of the pre-release buzz, but “Furiosa” spends much time impressing us elsewhere before we meet her. There are many transportive thrills in this restless world.
In the dun brownness of this apocalyptic world, anything green is a miracle and the Green Place of Many Mothers is one such. We arrive there early, but it is a mere sojourn. Here we meet a young Furiosa (played by an excellent Alyla Browne as a child and young teenager). She is soon abducted by a group of raiders, members of the Biker Horde, who take her back to their leader (Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus is scary but also a clown) as a sign of a green miracle to work towards. These early sequences are some of the most exciting parts of the film as we watch a young Furiosa do her best to keep the miracle of green a secret from the raiders, and Dementus. In what functions as a prologue, we hold our breath and bite our nails as Furiosa’s mother, Mary (Charlee Fraser) follows to retrieve her daughter.
Tragedy is signposted early-on, but the inevitability does not diminish from the taut tension of the cat-and-mouse game that plays out brutish men of Dementus and the daring of Mary, and Furiosa. The restrictiveness of both time and place in these early parts are a boon. Miller is adept at creating a visual symphony from the expansive locales and complications in the back-half of “Furiosa”, but there is a special thrill in watching the lengths a mother will go to retrieve her child and the way the camera turns the wide expanse of deserts into something entrapping. Browne and Fraser have little dialogue between them, but the chemistry of their bond is immediately explicated in ways that the film will come to build on. Miller has always been skilled at immediately convincing us of a new world’s legibility even when we are thrust into worlds that are not quite like ours. The opening sequences of his last film, the masterful and underrated “Three Thousand Years of Longing”, where we suddenly realise this is not a world like ours still linger in my mind for the immediate ways it earns our trust.
As Furiosa grows, an unwilling ward of Dementus, the story also grows and as the story kicks into its real focus as he makes his way to the Citadel (another settlement where there is fresh water and agriculture) “Furiosa” begins to feel looser than the tightness of those first sections. Dementus is the first dubious man we meet, but he is not the last. At the Citadel we meet Immortan Joe, the warlord leader of the Citadel whose menacing presence changes the dynamics of the film. And that’s just the beginning.
“Furiosa” is divided into five parts, each with its own title. It’s a structural conceit that allows Miller to develop five different “openings”, in a way. Certainly, this is a film moving towards its climax in a focused way but there is enough give between each section that allows each part to, somewhat, function as a story on its own. They each have what feels like their own climatic beats, with their own discrete concerns. The climax of the second section, the last of when we see Browne’s Furiousa, features a chase scene on foot between our young heroine and a menacing son of Joe. It is a simple moment compared to the visual splendour of vehicles dancing in later moments, but it might be my favourite. A tense and exciting moment as we watch a young girl make the most of her circumstances. Miller can get big but watching him navigate small moments as he turns them into emotional wallops feels like the best of his talents.
And it is gratifying that even when the film expands later on, leading up to a war between the Biker Horde and the men of the Citadel, that Miller still finds space for the little moments. Tom Burke, who has been doing invaluable work on screen and stage for years, emerges as the unlikely MVP as a commander of one of the Citadel’s war rigs. He’s got the kind of penetrating stare that pierces through the screen so much that you almost think he might be looking at you. This barren world is not the setting for romance, and still we believe the attraction that alights between him and Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa (initially disguised as a mute boy to move her way up the ranks of the Citadel’s men).
As the film moves towards its end, Miller becomes more explicit about “Furiosa” as a bridge from the last film, but it is a sensibility I realise I did not need from the film. Even as much as this is a direct prequel, the transformative powers of “Furiosa” feel functional on their own so much that time and context feel both material and immaterial. Yes, this is a predecessor to Theron’s “Furiosa”, but the thrills of this function on their own and less as part of a build-up towards the larger Mad Max legacy. Inevitable doom and sadness loom over it all so much that the movie feels better when considered as a chance to immerse oneself in a cruel, barren world of fictive end-times. Furiosa is not so much a heroine to root for as she is a woman doing the best to survive with the trauma meted out to her. It’s not so much a journey towards catharsis as it is an opportunity to immerse yourself in a vicious and thrilling dystopia. Perhaps it does not linger in a way that feels like a transformative experience, but in the darkness of the cinema sound and visuals transport us to an apocalyptical that feels real for every second of its running-time.
Furiosa is playing in cinemas