The echoes of the past that we hear in the opening minutes of Furiosa, which tell us why human society is but a memory, feel unsettlingly familiar. Pandemic. Runaway climate disaster and ecocide caused by human carbon emissions. Political instability and oppression. Gas wars. Water wars. Societal collapse. The first few minutes of the movie feel more like documentary than action spectacle. Here in the real world, our planet is dying and we’re literally running out of water; it feels like we’re all waiting for the proverbial dam to break.
What a fun and exciting topic for an escapist action blockbuster, right?
Turns out, in George Miller’s capable hands, that is right.
Read more…
In the wake of unleashing the most original and spectacular action blockbuster of the 21st century so far, eclectic Aussie filmmaker George Miller has followed up Mad Max: Fury Road with something that feels like a chamber drama by comparison. His new film, Three Thousand Years of Longing, is a meditation on the very nature of storytelling, how our civilization is making the line between technology and magic ever-more-blurry, and the ineffability of a central human trait: the capacity to give and receive love.
That Miller made such a radical turn between projects should be no surprise. Peppered among the (to date) four entries in his signature Mad Max series, the director wrote the gentle fable Babe and wrote and directed its sequel, Babe: Pig in the City. He also cowrote and directed both entries in the Happy Feet series, which are – and I have to credit Wikipedia for delivering this genre description – computer-animated jukebox musical comedies starring the likes of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Hugh Jackman, and Nicole Kidman.
Read more…
