mad max: thoughts on the furiosa-max relationship

[koalathebear]

There was an interesting answer to a question in the article Charlize Theron on Mad Max: Fury Road, being part of a feminist action movie

In the film Max and Furiosa are partners. Neither could succeed without the other. Was there ever talk of a love story? It would have ruined the movie.
Theron: No, no! I can say honestly we never did that. We never went there. …There was always a very clear understanding that these were two people who got stuck with each other and had to survive, and their survival really depended on each other. That was interesting for us. I think Tom and I are both actors who have probably been in situations where the easy answer is to have them kiss. In this case, it’s more interesting and more real, and I think you feel it so much more when we just look at each other, and there’s this recognition of “Man, I have to respect you in this moment.”

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Much as I ship Furiosa/Max with a ridiculous fervour - the above really is a wonderful insight into their relationship. Personally I don't think it precludes the potential for more later on down the track, but I think that the relationship between Max and Furiosa during the movie was about mutual survival, then respect and admiration ... I think towards the end it became affection and friendship.

It never got to the point of being romantic but there were so many signs of them being kindred spirits. So much of it was unspoken as well - demonstrated through long looks and actions that were never cheesy or contrived.

• Max leaves the Rig cabin to take care of the dragging fuel pod.
• Max is surprised at Furiosa’s willingness to trust him to drive the Rig to safety at the Canyon.
• The whole escape from the Canyon is Max and Furiosa surviving together. It's all unspoken. Even though they don't even know each other yet, they're clearly somehow operating on the same wavelength, complementing one another as equals. Everything is so smooth and instinctive. He tosses the gun towards her so that she can shoot the Rock Riders. At one point, she's demanding the Wives reload a gun, they fumble and delay and so Max he tosses another gun up towards her. He shoots out a window so she could shoot a flare gun at one of the Rock Riders.
• In the Bog, he misses two long distance shots. When he only has one shot left, Furiosa doesn't actually ask him to give her the rifle, she hovers behind him and Max is the one who decides to give up the gun to her, acknowledging that she's the better shot. He saw how she was with the Rock Riders and how she shot the Rock Riders (at long distance) that Cheedo was running towards earlier. He clearly respects her abilities. Then he keeps still as she props the rifle on his shoulder, leans towards him and uses his body to steady the gun. He lets her use his body and he trusts her. "Don't breathe," she orders him.
• Also in the Bog when he tells her: "You stay here, I'll go." - going off on his own to kill the Bullet Farmer even though the odds are clearly stacked against him. This is entirely unselfish, he is putting himself at risk for her and the Wives. When she asks him what to do if he's not back in time, he looks surprised at the question and tells her that she should just leave... then he comes back with the steering wheel, weapons and ammo - it's just a wonderful scene.
• When he's asleep in the Rig while she's driving and she tells him to rest - she recognises the nightmares. He's probably heard her wake up from her nightmares a few times during the drive. They take turns driving... She confides in him, tells him of the Green Place and allows him to see the sadness and pain inside of her.
• The look in his eyes when he sees her screaming with pain in the sand, grief-stricken following the realisation that the Green Place is no more is so awful and you can tell that he really feels her pain
• When he rejoins them despite his initial refusal. "We go back and start over. Together." Max comes up with the plan to turn right around and go -back- to the Citadel. There is so much eye contact in this scene and then they clasp hands. They're partners. He says: “Maybe, together, we could find some kind of redemption," - remembering what she told him before. He remembers everything.
• During the final 'chase' sequence, Max kicks a guy with a chainsaw off the hood of the War Rig, and he locks eyes with Furiosa through the windscreen. Everything he does after that moment is trying to get back to her and beat the next attacker away from her
• When he pulls alongside her in the People Eater's big rig, and one of the wives shouts at him, "She's hurt! She's hurt real bad!" - you can see that he's trying so hard to get back to her to help her. It's crazy and chaotic, everything keeps getting in the way as he's flung here and there but he's on a determined path to return to Furiosa. When he sees that she's climbing onto Joe's truck you can see him get really desperate at that point - that he has to get to her before she gets herself killed.
• After she kills Immortan Joe and is on the point of falling, he gets there just in time to catch her and there is so much relief on his face. It works and it isn't devaluing her because she saved him earlier as well by stopping him from falling under the wheels.
• he gives her his own blood. I love this scene. The medicine might be nonsensical and the transfusion process dangerous but this whole scene is beautiful. He's agonised when he has to inflict more pain on her to enable her to breathe again. She gasps painfully for him to get the others home but he is determined not to let her die. As someone else pointed out, the climactic scene in an action movie is the protagonist performing an act of healing instead of an act of violence. It's also a twist on the beginning of the movie where Max is captured and harvested for his blood. He is nothing more than a thing, a 'blood bag' and his blood is taken from him against his will and yet here he is at the end willingly giving his blood to Furiosa.
• Max in trying to find some way to keep Furiosa alive ... awake and listening... mumbles his name at her... tells her who he is. There is so much tenderness in that scene...
• I love the way they stand on the vehicle at the end supporting one another - both battered and bruised, Furiosa half dead, but they're still a team
• The nod they exchange at the end ... I wish he'd have stayed with her. I'm sure he'll be back ... How could he NOT return? Has he ever connected to someone the way he has connected with Furiosa since the death of his wife way back when? He's been a lone wolf/angry mistreated dog ... she helped him return to sanity and dragged him along on her redemption journey, making him put aside his own statement: "So I exist in this wasteland, reduced to one instinct: survive." He's now back to his original ways - finding a righteous cause, protecting others.

I have a bunch of tumblr reblogs here, but the most relevant ones are:
Mad Max/Furiosa: As the "Dream Team" post #1
Mad Max/Furiosa: As the "Dream Team" post #2