Miller’s kinetic style of direction, stripped down to the bare essentials, became even more oriented towards speed, energy and cataclysm, albeit with much more attention to the development of character. The film’s action set pieces were unprecedented in 1981, when the film came out. The settlers aren’t to be trusted, anymore than Humungus. In the circumstances, Max’s desire not to join them becomes more credible, and laudable. They clearly regard themselves as morally superior the film equally clearly shows us their potential for hypocrisy. The settlers may dress in homespun clothing and furs, but their leaders are quite willing to doublecross Max at the first opportunity. (That’s part of the reason the finale shows Wez trying to get at the Feral Kid).Īt the same time, Miller shows us that the good guys aren’t so good. The Feral Kid (Emil Minty) has killed the love of his life – an effete blonde man called the Golden Youth (played by Jim Brown) – with a metal boomerang. Wez, the Mohawk warrior, is partly driven by a terrible desire for revenge. These are like Spartacus’s men without the moral fibre, although Miller is also careful to show that they have deep emotional ties with each other. Humungus’s group clearly model themselves on a variety of late 20th and early 19th century warriors (from highway patrol officers to Mohawk Indians), but the savagery seems more like the Roman empire on wheels. The desert suggests a savage North Africa, as well as the American west. Humanity has reverted to tribalism and the film’s style is similarly reflexive. Max has left the suburbs behind – indeed, we’re not sure they even exist anymore, given the film’s prologue about a disastrous oil war that has ruined the earth. Mad Max 2 is a more self-consciously mythic film, in a much more primal landscape. The influence of Joseph Campbell – an anthropologist who analysed world mythologies to construct a theory of universal mythology – becomes very evident here. Its success meant that he was able to make the sequel with much more money and time, and much grander ambitions. The first Mad Max was made fast and cheap, an experience that director George Miller found very frustrating. As he drives the tanker out, the Feral Kid (Emil Minty), a small boy who idolises Max, jumps on the back of the truck. He returns to the fort and joins the settlers, in their last ditch run for freedom. After the job is done, Max is wounded as he tries to outrun Wez (Vernon Wells), the chief warrior for Lord Humungus. He will bring them a prime mover for their tanker of petrol, in return for as much gas as he can carry. Max makes a deal with Pappagallo (Mike Preston), leader of the settlers. As Max and the Gyro Captain arrive, the fortified refinery is besieged by a murderous gang of vermin led by a giant man in a hockey mask, Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson). The Gyro Captain offers to show Max a place where he can get all the petrol he wants: a desert refinery run by a tribe of settlers. When Max is bushwhacked by the pilot of a gyro-copter (Bruce Spence), the dog turns the tables. The desert is a realm of motorised gladiators who will kill anyone for petrol. His family is dead his only companion is a smart and ferocious blue heeler called ‘dog’. Mad Max 2 SynopsisĪfter a disastrous war over oil, Max (Mel Gibson) has become a desert wanderer with few ties to the world. Miller has said that much of the production time was spent chasing this kind of late afternoon light. Notice also the use of the ‘golden hour’ light, particularly on the shot of Wez’s arm with crossbow as he draws up to Max’s car. In the moment that Max slams on the brakes, there are approximately ten cuts in the space of a few seconds, some almost too quick to see. Try counting the number of shots in this sequence – there are about seventy cuts. The sequence also serves as a wake-up call to the audience – the film begins at full pelt, with no holds barred. The hint of dandyism in the character played by Hugh Keays-Byrne in the first film gives way to full-scale neo-tribalism now in the Indian hairdo of Wez, set off by shoulder pads with black feathers! His androgynous passenger further accentuates the move towards high camp – well before Australian movies embraced a gay aesthetic in the 1990s. They are cannibalised monsters, befitting the savagery of their owners. His adversaries now drive much more customised vehicles, rather than souped-up cars. Max’s injuries in the last film have determined how he looks now – his leg braced, his jacket missing one arm. The change from the previous film is announced emphatically – more stylised landscape, costuming and characterisation, with a strong hint of the American western.
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