Preamble

At this point, writing about Mad Max: Fury Road has become quite a staple on the blog. Aside from the initial review, the 2015 film has also been featured in a rare second viewing post as well as a long piece about the film’s use of black and white. But as I sit here the night before finally seeing Furiosa, revisiting and writing about the film seemed as too good an opportunity to pass up. With that in mind, what’s your favourite shot from Fury Road? Let me know in the comments below.

One Great Shot

It’s no understatement to say that George Miller’s fourth entry in his Mad Max series has many striking shots. These vary from nightmarish images featured in the Bog section to the operatic shot of Charlize Theron’s Furiosa breaking down. But on this viewing, I was most struck by some of the shots involving Max.

Whilst demonstrably being the main and title character, the 2015 film’s most interesting and sly trick is giving the floor to Furiosa and her perspective etc. It’s what makes the picture soar above its predecessors. On the surface, this could make Max seem like the guest star in his own movie. However, he works as a good contrast to Furiosa as his haunted past is given visual and script lip service throughout the movie.

The first instance of this is in the above shot in the early moments of the picture. At first the shot is static as Max hears a lone girl call out for him. As the scene goes on, the camera tilts downwards to reveal a crawling mutated lizard that Max eventually crushes and eats. The patient and exacting framing of events is an excellent visual metaphor for Max’s fragmented mind as the voices of those he failed to protect “worm” their way to his sub-conscious.

It’s the first instance of many whereby the visual elements around Max start to blur between a dreamlike perception of the people he let down and real world environments. These moments that are ignited by this shot give a lot of credence and power to Max’s choice to help Furiosa in the third act. When he says to her, “At least that way, you know we might be able to together come across some kind of redemption”, he’s nursing his guilty conscience as much as Furiosa’s.