Mad Max: Fury Road

[thedeadparrot]

I finally got to see it after hearing a lot about it (perhaps too much about it). Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. The worldbuilding is impressive. The action is tense. The emotional stakes are well drawn. It feels deeply fearless, in ways that blockbuster movies rarely are these days. There are a lot of women involved! Of all different types

Comments

[bironic]

>>One of the people at work who loved the movie talked about how detailed the movie is, and I don't think that detail exists without a certain type of gleeful fanboyism to go with it.

Interesting. I agree that the aesthetic was complex and consistent, which was lovely. I'd been thinking of it as the director's vision; now you've got me pondering the similarities and differences between "vision" and "id." One sounds more sophisticated than the other, but maybe it's just trying to dress up "id" in more celebratory language. To the extent that unless we know the director or have access to their thoughts and kinks (narrative or otherwise), it's more or less opaque to us whether the vision seen in an artistic product of theirs is born of their baser tastes or whether they're just exploring something... separate from that. Or if you can examine a body of work rather than one piece, then you'd be better able to notice patterns and extrapolate from there. In other words, I would probably have more insight if I'd seen the other Mad Max movies. Because my having seen Babe is not helpful here. :)

>>the way that the movie loves the grotesque.

I've been chewing on that too. So ambivalent about it. Like, at first physical deformity and other body types not considered mainstream beautiful were associated with power and corruption, but then they were also associated with poverty and misery, and besides Charlize Theron, whose arm was obviously done in CG, hardly any of the actors with missing limbs or dwarfism etc. got to have lines, let alone decent characterization. Is it good that they're at least on screen, getting jobs? Is it worse?

And let's not get started on the age-old association of kink and deviancy with corruption, which was also present here in spades. :(

>>when she says that the movie doesn't feel feminist.

Am also feeling ambivalent here. Fandom isn't known for its moderate reactions, so I was still reserved going into this, and remain so. Overall am pleased that women mostly drove the story and mostly got to be the POV characters, and that the misogynist characters/messages got stomped on, mostly by the women they objectified and oppressed. That we are invited to jeer at a dude who kept women hostage as sex slaves and gave them literal vagina dentata chastity belts. And I very much liked the message that there's nowhere you can go to escape the patriarchy. But you're right that there were still plenty of uncomfortable tropes to go around. And I'm scratching my head at people on DW & Tumblr who are beside themselves with how long they've waited for 'a movie like this.' (Most recent: "It's a dream come true.") Although I won't begrudge fangirls their joy.

Mostly what I liked best was how the moviemakers made physics work for them in the action scenes! Not only do you not have to break Newton's laws, you can think up new things to do with them. TAKE NOTE, EVERY RECENT ACTION BLOCKBUSTER.

Sorry for all the edits.

[thedeadparrot]

I feel like 'vision' and 'id' can be tied up in each other. I think in this movie, the reason why I react to it so strongly this way is because of the extremity of everything and how specific it is. EVERYONE GETS BRANDED. GUY PLAYING A GUITAR ON A TRUCK. THERE'S A PILE OF STEERING WHEELS WITH SKULLS ON THEM. It's interesting, because I can watch the F&F movies, which also go to extremes, and I don't think I get the same feeling of 'oh, I know what fascinates/repulses/turns on this writer/director' that I did when I saw Mad Max. Maybe not being set in a different universe keeps them grounded just enough that it doesn't show as easily.

The vagina dentata chastity belts were definitely part of the whole like, 'ew, ew, ew. I can see your id right now' feeling that I got at times while watching the movie. And sexual slavery is one of those topics/tropes that are almost never going to be handled well in your action-packed summer blockbuster, and so I shouldn't be surprised that it still feels like cheap titilation, even when the movie tries to mitigate the grossest parts of it. I was super impressed that it didn't shy away from showing a pregnant woman on screen! That was cool!

But also, after seeing too many YA dystopias, I am over the whole idea that overthrowing exaggerated versions of the government/evil social systems is anything like overthrowing the real thing?

So yeah, ambivalence on that front! A+ on being more feminist that 99% of action blockbusters, but I wish people were ready to acknowledge that it's a super low bar to clear.