Mad Max: Fury Road
Thursday, 11 June 2015 12:30 amSo I like films with sensitive explorations of gender, and I like films with explosions, and Mad Max: Fury Road combines these to pleasing effect.
The setting makes no sense whatsoever - setting massive amounts of, presumably fractionally distilled crude oil on fire in what's meant to be a post-nuclear apocalyptic wasteland doesn't seem like the brightest idea to me but what do I know about massive flames coming out of trucks or, indeed, worldbuilding. What's even happening with Gas Town? It's all pretty confusing.
I loved the dusty, cobbled-together aesthetic - VW Beetles soldered together to make truck cabs, people making ad hoc repairs out of anything they could find, the understanding that you didn't waste metal but should find a use for it. It's something I loved about Tatooine, and something I love about this.
FURIOSA. I have a lot of feelings about Furiosa. She's terrifyingly competent and brave and resourceful and determined and tough - all the characteristics of a male action hero, but on the body of a slim shorn-haired woman with a really cool looking prosthetic arm. Her war rig has a skeletal left arm painting on the side. It's her vehicle; she's left a human mark on it as she straps metal around her shoulders.
For a film with very little dialogue, it passes the Bechdel test. The women characters are so interesting, and all have backstories I want to know about. How did they all end up there?
In terms of problematic stuff, I am not keen on the way that the good guys' bodies were portrayed as non-monstrous while the bad guys' bodies were. Furiosa's disability is not really remarked on, whereas there are some quite obvious scenes where various bad guys' disabilities and prosthetics are presented as something monstrous and unhuman. I think this is seen more clearly through Nux: the War Boys are deathly pale and move with arachnid grace, but by the end Nux's flesh is looking much more skin coloured.
( spoilers )
SO. Did you write meta? Do you know if anyone's written interesting meta? I really liked![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
happydork's review and this review by yasaman but would like to read more!
The setting makes no sense whatsoever - setting massive amounts of, presumably fractionally distilled crude oil on fire in what's meant to be a post-nuclear apocalyptic wasteland doesn't seem like the brightest idea to me but what do I know about massive flames coming out of trucks or, indeed, worldbuilding. What's even happening with Gas Town? It's all pretty confusing.
I loved the dusty, cobbled-together aesthetic - VW Beetles soldered together to make truck cabs, people making ad hoc repairs out of anything they could find, the understanding that you didn't waste metal but should find a use for it. It's something I loved about Tatooine, and something I love about this.
FURIOSA. I have a lot of feelings about Furiosa. She's terrifyingly competent and brave and resourceful and determined and tough - all the characteristics of a male action hero, but on the body of a slim shorn-haired woman with a really cool looking prosthetic arm. Her war rig has a skeletal left arm painting on the side. It's her vehicle; she's left a human mark on it as she straps metal around her shoulders.
For a film with very little dialogue, it passes the Bechdel test. The women characters are so interesting, and all have backstories I want to know about. How did they all end up there?
In terms of problematic stuff, I am not keen on the way that the good guys' bodies were portrayed as non-monstrous while the bad guys' bodies were. Furiosa's disability is not really remarked on, whereas there are some quite obvious scenes where various bad guys' disabilities and prosthetics are presented as something monstrous and unhuman. I think this is seen more clearly through Nux: the War Boys are deathly pale and move with arachnid grace, but by the end Nux's flesh is looking much more skin coloured.
( spoilers )
SO. Did you write meta? Do you know if anyone's written interesting meta? I really liked
happydork's review and this review by yasaman but would like to read more!
