MAD MAX

I just watched Mad Max: Fury Road for the third time. Thoughts are taking shape.

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It's Mad Max through the Looking Glass.

Binoculars. Telescopes. Rifle sights. Windows. (Figurative mirrors.)

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Mirrors.

Max and Furiosa. Furiosa and Immortan Joe. Nux and Slit.

The Breeders and their Vuvalini counterparts. (In fact, one of my favorite scenes is when they first meet each other. There is joy on the faces of the Vuvalini as they recognize "themselves.")

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Symmetry. (Itself a form of mirroring.)

Max as involuntary blood bag at the open of the film. Max as voluntary blood bag at the end of the film.

Immortan Joe and Furiosa both stripped of their mechanical/metal pieces at the same time. (Fatal for Joe, wounding for Furiosa.)

The same actor playing the Toe Cutter in Mad Max and Immortan Joe in Fury Road.

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Echoes/references to the other Mad Max films.

The vehicle. The outfit.

The long hair at the beginning that reminds me of the Feral Kid of The Road Warrior and the Max of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

The Warboys referring to Max as one of the feral people (Feral Kid!).

The doll's head on the back of one of the attackers of the War Rig at the end of the movie—like that worn by Ironbar in Thunderdome.

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The colors.

The rich oranges and reds. (And being mirrored in the massive dust storm.)

The blue of night/dark, with highlights/spotlights of yellow and orange.

That which is chrome and shiny.

The red and black "battle flags" on the back of Immortan Joe's car.

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Immortan Joe, the War Boys, and the promise of Valhalla. A critique of religion? Cults? Society? Power?

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The dependent masses depicted like the inhabitants of Brueghel and Bosch paintings.