Splatter: on FILM

Fuel and fire meet blood, sweat, and sand. Hell hath no fury… The scorned slave women held by the demon lord’s grip seek refuge in Furiosa’s getaway tanker War Rig. Charlize Theron may be the only woman alive who still manages stunning beauty under shaven, greased head, filth, and mechanical arm.Tom Hardy’s Max, the namesake, dealing with grief and demons of his own past, is the accidental tourist “bloodbag” as he is called in this the 4th in a series of Max films by the same director, George Miller. Max is along for the ride of his life until he escapes in a torrent of cyclones, teams up, grows a heart, and finds a cause to chase on his own path to redemption.Every award well deserved, it’s a stunning, explosive, daring, brutal, artistic, masterpiece. Strangely beautiful in sweeping desert scapes and an unforgettable storm sequence. (But feel free to look away during the scene with the baby. You’ll know when it’s coming. Don’t watch. There is enough dust and chaos in this death race to more than compensate for a few moments of eye-shutting.)
Cinematographer, John Seale, connects to audience eye movement, drawing them shot for shot from one frame to another maintaining visual consistency. This concept is explained beautifully in this slightly crass but vivid and informative video called “How Mad Max Directed You!”One long, high-speed Road Back sequence, it’s stressful and grotesque at times. Max is quirky too. The film rumbles and quick takes from shot to shot, breakneck, offering only small doses of pace-break to catch a breath. So many die on fury road. Too many cultishly follow the tumored, jawless creature of a warlord, doing his bidding to the death. Somehow the plot is not lost in the action nor is the fight for justice, morality, and human dignity lost in the tumult.