Would love to hear your thoughts on Mad Max 2015! To me it forms almost a folk tale, Max as a mythic figure who moves in and out of larger events, framing others' stories by virtue of walking through and past them.
I cannot tell you how much Mad Max (2015) felt like every other lame late 80s/early 90s adventure film---except. With the single and staggering exception of a uniquely unparalleled vision. It speaks in visual poetry, from the sere line of the desert against the sky, the rust-colored sand whirling beneath wheels, the blue velvet of the night, the intricate and brutal steel hulks of the rigs. It took me half the film to realize there wasn't even that much dialogue, because everything I was seeing spoke.
I've talked before about how sometimes it can be useful to look at art through the question of priorities. An artist can't have a fully-developed romance, a complex plot, an intricate character study, and fully fleshed-out world in a single work---so where are they investing the most energy? (You could expand this list indefinitely, to be fair--- writers and poets can put the lyricism of their language first; artists could put the material nature of their oils or clay on display; podcasts or movies can focus on soundscapes, etc.) Still, there's no question to my mind how George Miller answers that question. It's in every frame.
As for the idea of "Mad Max" as less a person than a folkloric creature, wandering through this horribly beautiful wasteland...well. Personally, I'm not much of a sequels or series person, but if you're going to do it, surely that's the way. Without an Ithaca to return to, Odysseus has no reason to stop wandering---and if he sometimes wears a different face, well. He was no one, all along, wasn't he?
