Director: George Miller
Writers: George Miller, Nick Lathouris
Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Alyla Browne, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Charlee Fraser
Duration: 148 mins
Available in: Theatres
Twice in George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), the film’s protagonist finds herself faced with a wild-eyed crone who lives in a tunnel under the Citadel, surrounded by maggot-infested dead bodies. “You’ll find peace here,” the old woman promises, her eyes as bright as Furiosa’s as she tries to convince Miller’s heroine to feed off the dead. Not much can unsettle Furiosa, but the crone does. She inspires fear and Furiosa scrambles to escape this place of rotting half-life with such desperation that she’d rather embrace demented madness than the “peace” offered by the old woman. It’s tempting to read this brief moment from Furiosa as a parallel to the choices Miller has made as a director. Once a doctor and then a filmmaker, Miller’s career is one that defies stereotyping and sparkles with originality. It’s not every day that you come across a filmography that includes great children’s films like Babe: Pig in the City (1998) and Happy Feet (2006), along with the Mad Max movies and an ungainly but densely sensual love story between a djinn and a professor (Three Thousand Years of Longing, 2022). Clearly, Miller, like Furiosa, has been determined to not feed off the past — until, ironically, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
Divided into five parts, Furiosa is a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which introduced us to the impossibly beautiful, one-armed gladiator, Imperator Furiosa (played to perfection by Charlize Theron). Although her name is not in the title, Fury Road is as much Furiosa’s film as it is Max’s since it is her decision to go up against her boss Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) that unleashes magnificent chaos. There are hints in Fury Road about Furiosa’s past, of her memories of growing up among many mothers in The Green Place before she was abducted and shackled to the world of greedy men. Miller’s fifth Mad Max film returns to the post-apocalypse Wasteland and fleshes out Furiosa’s backstory.