It takes but a minute of the two hours and 28 minutes runtime of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga to realise that this is a work of a mad genius.

Writer-director-producer George Miller’s work has often been as derivative as it has been exploratory. He has been shifting styles since the beginning — with his and actor Mel Gibson’s career-defining, unrelenting, post-apocalyptic debut Mad Max, its two sequels, a segment in the anthological Twilight Zone movie (Nightmare at 20,000 Feet) to the weighty emotional drama Lorenzo’s Oil, and his frequent returns to heartwarming kiddie fare, such as Babe and Happy Feet.

But I believe he has finally found that hard-to-define, evasive, wit that truly defines a filmmaker through two films — the first one Happy Feet,which follows storytelling conventions to a fair degree, and the second Mad Max: Fury Road,which all but chucks most known forms of narrative out in the barren deserts that inhabit Max’s resource-stricken world.

Fury Road is a modern classic that evades conventional storytelling norms like the plague. On the surface, starring Mad Max — with Tom Hardy taking over the role from Gibson — that film unapologetically shifts focus to Furiosa, a rig driver for Immortan Joe — a ridiculous villain who towers over his cult-like army in a fortress called The Citadel.

Charlize Theron, looking every bit as stunning even with grease, grime, a nearly shaved head and mechanical arm, had been the perfect Furiosa — a hard-boiled officer of Joe’s who escapes with his five young wives (Joe keeps unblemished young women as his sex slaves — the “breeders” for his inheritors).

There’s little room for conversation in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, just a lot of action. But it’s a showcase for the one-man genius of writer-director George Miller

Most of Fury Road had been a ruse to set up and culminate Furiosa’s story. She, we learn, had been abducted when she was young, and her subplots about returning home aligns directly with the main premise.

In a way, with that detailed foreknowledge, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga becomes as redundant as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a film whose entire reason for existence was explained away in the opening text scroll in A New Hope, the first Star Wars film.

Yet, despite this dispensability, this reviewer, armed with utter scepticism, could not take his eyes off the screen. The film — or rather Miller — is spellbinding, riveting, and all other manners of descriptions that makes filmmakers the stuff of legends.

Miller doesn’t bend the rules, he straight out obliterates them. His film is as kinetic as it is adamant on deviating from storytelling customs. There is absolute emphasis on visual form — the very engine that drives Furiosa — and little on known cliches of storytelling structures that impede every action film.

Most of Fury Road had been a ruse to set up and culminate Furiosa’s story. She, we learn, had been abducted when she was young, and her subplots about returning home aligns directly with the main premise.

His plot — or whatever passes for a plot — uses emotion as a peg in the midst of running action sequences. The eye registers, sorts and appropriately catalogues every detail Miller throws at you, including believing that the slender, excessively wide-eyed Anya Taylor-Joy would be a fitting replacement for Theron. She isn’t, but Miller and his brilliant cinematography and editing choices makes sure that doesn’t come in the way.

There is little room for conversation, just a lot of action. Like Fury Road, Furiosa is deliberately short on dialogue. This is as bold a narrative choice as it is wise. Who would go on expository exchanges in the midst of action sequences — where everyone is screaming war cries while riding on preposterous looking vehicles — or talk their head and heart out in a world where everyone has a shared plight?

With that distinction now serving as a tangible part of the mutated, barren world where Max and Furiosa live — where everyone knows what’s at stake — Miller is set free to tell a story few others are capable of. To be honest, not everyone should try this approach until they have a few solid decades of directorial experience.

Be they Taylor-Joy or Chris Hemsworth — with a fake nose, he plays Dementus, the warlord leader of the Biker Horde, and the main antagonist of the film — the actors service whatever Miller has on his inventive, chaos-driven imagination.

Despite a crew of hundreds, this is a one-man show, and given the experience — especially on the big screen — one feels joy jotting down that statement.

Released by HKC and Warner Bros. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is rated A and is suitable for adult audiences. Given the non-stop brutality — which goes with the story — the film is not suitable for teens under the age of 18

Published in Dawn, ICON, June 9th, 2024