Transcript
Furiosa! That’s the topic of today’s episode. Welcome to another episode of Shitty Diary of a Wannabe Cinephile. Yep, that’s a super intro again, thanks to the composer.
Just watched Furiosa yesterday. Hmm, I wonder how you say the names, no? Furious, maybe it’s from Furious and Furiosa? Yeah, probably. A couple of interesting things that we’re gonna talk about today.
First off, which is George Miller’s best movie? Furiosa? Fury Road? Happy Feet? Or Babe: Pig in the City? Between these four, what do you think is George Miller’s best movie? Now you see, that’s a very unique director, you know? Going from Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet to Furiosa. This man has a huge range of topics to talk about, no? Quite interesting. So, that’s one of the topics.
That’s already over, so there’s a poll going on, a mental poll going on. Think about it inside your head. And if you want to reach out, comment, review, send an email, please do.
And the question today, I think, is why are recent prequels a lot better than the actual movies, you know? And I have a theory about this, at least from my point of view. I like narratives. So, I’m already saying that I’m someone who is narrative-biased.
So, the better the narrative, the better the character development, the better the arcs, the better explained the history, the more I like a movie. So, for example, Fury Road, an amazing movie from a technical point of view. It’s like a ballet of violence and metal and oil, no? So, I mean, the comeback from Mad Max with Fury Road is, it’s this, no? Not a lot of story there, but from this cinematic idea of missing son, missing sin, George Miller kind of retakes his own production of Mad Max to dizzying heights, no? So, Mad Max always, for me, kind of, I have to come back to this.
So, I’m going to have to someday re-watch the original three Mad Max movies, re-watch Fury Road, and then come back to this, no? But my impression with Fury Road is that George Miller understands, and this is no kind of like the criticism of at least his latest two movies, the bread and circus entertainment. Bread and circus entertainment, violence, music, violence, music, and this kind of neo-Roman gladiators, no? And then he took this to, like, the reference, no? To the even old movies like Ben-Hur with this Furiosa. You have Demetrus, he’s on a chariot, motorcycle chariot, no? And this whole movie, they’re just spinning around like bread and circus for the thrill of the sensations of the violence. So, I like Furiosa.
In the end, there’s even a question about, there’s a question in there, the last dialogue before he dies, what’s going on, no? Both in Shogun that I talked about last episode and this episode, the last dialogue before someone dies always reveals the argument or the thematic of the movie, or always makes it explicit. Let’s do it, no? In case you haven’t figured it out till then, you always have this last argument before someone dies where they make it explicit, always, no? But at least in the last two things that I revealed here, that I talked about here. So, anyways, yeah, before Demetrus dies, an amazing paper for an amazing character, an amazing role for Chris Hemsworth, who I’m not the biggest fan of.
I mean, he’s really good, no? What can you say? I think he’s really good in Thor, but this was one of his most interesting roles, I think. I really liked him, really liked him as Demetrus. So, anyways, yeah, before he dies, you have that small conversation that, you know, you’re always seeking, once you get insensitive, you’re always seeking more, more, more, more, more, more, and you always have to make it more, more violent, more, in this case, cinematic, no? So, you have this kind of whole bread and circus criticism of, it’s like a meta language, no? Criticizing or thinking about the role of this own movie.
And, oh, I just came, I’m thinking now, oh, you can think, oh, how meta, no? How far thinking of this movie, and I just remembered one small line in The Sympathizer. I think that’s a difference you have in someone probably coming from outside. Well, George Miller is Australian, no? He came from outside Hollywood culture. Anyway, in The Sympathizer, Park Chan-wook’s movie, I think the Koreans maybe are more, are more akin to doing proper criticism of society, no? But they have a role there where, talking about the Hollywood movie, the CIA is talking about, you know, while the directors keep into this muddy range of humanities and don’t actually say anything or just have the idea that they’re actually saying something, but something that doesn’t change anything, it’s okay. So anyways, just coming back, closing my parenthesis of The Sympathizer and this amazing line, this movie makes a criticism, but at the same time is doing, you know, what the criticism is saying, so it’s kind of a meta-analysis of what’s the purpose of this movie.
So George Miller, I think in this movie, he, and it’s a prequel that kind of tries to understand the phenomenon of why Mad Max exists. That is an interesting part. And what I think that I’ve been liking a lot about prequels, so this prequel and The Hunger Games prequel, I think it’s Hummingbird, the name, no? That surprised me.
I watched it on an airplane because I thought it was, oh, okay, it should be just like a good entertainment value for an airplane movie. Watch the time pass by as you fly. But it surprised me because I think the prequel lately has been doing something quite interesting that while the main movies are maybe more action-focused and not world-building, the prequel has come up both now in Mad Max and even with also The Hunger Games.
The prequel comes with the, I wouldn’t say the obligation, but the necessity of giving background and creating a story for the characters in the movies, you know? So I’ve been liking prequels lately. I think the prequels have this right now, from a narrative point of view, have been more interesting than what comes after, no? So what they’re prequeling to has become more interesting than the actual thing. So yeah, Furiosa surprised me.
A little bit of criticism there. I’m trying to understand the paper of violence, the idea, the role of, you know, this whole bread and wine circus, Roman circus in contemporary times. And I think there’s a lot more to talk about.
I mean, the whole idea of Mad Max is quite interesting, but I would have to go back and watch the first three movies because it’s been 20 years since I’ve watched them. But this concept, no? I think this, I don’t know, I’m not very knowledgeable of Australian culture, no? But I think this whole idea of these cars worshipping, and I think this one makes it even more clear, no? Kind of worshipping how many horsepower an engine has. And this whole idea of a society without laws that worships, what? They worship the power of mechanics, no? I think this is a very American idea.
And I find it quite interesting, thinking about bringing this logic of worshipping, worshipping mechanics, worshipping the horsepower, which I think at the time when Mad Max started was kind of worshipping the technology of that time, no? And where that brings the ultimate outcome of that. What comes of this worship of pure mechanical power? I think that is an interesting theme in Mad Max that I’ll have to come back to once I rewatch all of them. But yeah, so those are just some quick thoughts on Furiosa.
There’s a beautiful time-lapse. There’s a couple of things. I’m not going to get into specifics of the script.
I don’t think that’s super interesting. I mean, thematically, the criticism was interesting. Having the background was interesting.
Anya Taylor-Joy is amazing, as always. I have this idea that, you know, Anya Taylor-Joy is like the female version of Timothée Chalamet. But I think overall I like her more.
And well, kudos to her for speaking perfect Argentinian Spanish. I would like to see her in a role where she speaks Spanish with an Argentinian accent. That would be really, really cool.
And well, she’s amazing. Since The Witch, she has been just on a streak, no? Anyways, 87 out of 87. How much would I give it? I would give it 80.
You know what to expect. You are not expecting a super deep movie. It’s a movie about the spectacle of cinema, but it managed to do so.
This whole ballet of violence, motors, mechanics and insanity does this really well. And this time with an amazing backstory, with an amazing narrative, maybe compared to Fury Road. Anyways, I’ll have to re-watch Fury Road.
So Furiosa, 80 out of 87. Really nice. If you have the chance, I suggest you watch it.
That’s it for me today. If you like this podcast and the previous episodes, we discussed Shogun. We discussed the Fallout series, Sperm World, the documentary.
And I think probably I’m going to watch Alex Garland’s Civil War again tomorrow. Because it was a movie that left me in doubt. There was some really nice stuff, some not so interesting things.
But after re-watching, I’ll come back. So probably
the next episode, Alex Garland’s Civil War. If you liked it, please subscribe.
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