I would say that as a whole Mad Max: Fury Road supports
nihilism. The character Max (Tom Hardy) is the epitome of a Nihilist. In the
opening scene Max describes his world as "fire and blood." Everything
has been taken from him, and as a result he has nothing left to believe in.
Later on in the rain and mud Max says to Furiosa that, "hope is a mistake.
If you can't fix what's broken, you'll, uh... you'll go insane." These
ideas that life is meaninglessness and that the only purpose in the apocalyptic
world is to survive, nothing more, perfectly mirror the concepts of Nihilism. In
Max’s world, there is no greater meaning, no purpose to fight for, he simply
fights to survive.
While Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and her group of escaped wives
began the journey with the hope for a better life, and the goal of seeking
refuge in a legendary group of warrior women, it is later discovered that the
majority of the clan has perished, and the earth had become “too sour” for
crops to grow. While hope still persists in the form of seeds, the underlying
belief of something better out in the wasteland proved to be false. This
supports the Nihilistic concept that there is no greater truth in life, and
that the world truly is nothing more than the immoral, harsh, chaotic mess that
it appears to be.
The film not only supports Nihilism, but actively rejects
the alternative. The main antagonist Immorten Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) rules over
his army through the power of religious fanaticism. His disciples frequently
use suicidal tactics in the hopes that they will “ride eternal, shiny and
chrome” in the afterlife of Valhalla.
This escapist mindset and promise of a land better than the relentless desert
enables their extreme violent behavior, a direct contrast to Max’s cool and
collected Nihilistic personality.
Between Furiosa and the wives reaching the end of their
journey only to realize that “hope is a mistake,” and the violent and psychotic
actions of Immorten Joe’s war boys, who are driven insane with the hope of Joe’s
promised afterlife, it is clear that Mad Max: Fury Road represents a world
where Nihilism is the only truth.
You wrote this post so well that any comment on it would be a hindrance to it. All I can say is that Mad Max: Fury Road is the full embodiment of nihilism. One of the main themes of the movie is survival and the abandonment of hope like max says, "Hope is a mistake. If you can't fix what's broken, you'll, uh... you'll go insane." That statement has a deeper meaning if you’ve seen the other movie where Max kept trying to save the people he held close over and over, and throughout the movie you can really see his mental state and how he keeps see visions of his daughter and the people who died because of him. Over all the movie shows yet another apocalyptic scenario for are society to ponder at, because right now it seems pretty reasonable to assume that the world will be in some way like Mad Max.
ReplyDeleteThe movie Mad Max is an exciting thrilling movie filled with endless amount of action and adventure. I admire the producers idea of incorporating nihilism. While watching the film I caught the sense of what the producer was trying to portray, this post apocalyptic world filled with nothing. The world has gone to chaos and no one seems to care. The director did an amazing job at portraying the producers idea. In the first opening scene the director did a high to low shot showing the empty landscape leading the audience to believe the setting of this movie is in a post apocalyptic world. It can be noted that Mad Max is a franchise movie with the last movie being made in 1992. So this idea of nihilism isn’t new at all, just seems as though it’s more common. Society now in days has taken a liking to these post apocalyptic movies such as: Hunger Games, Divergent, Mad Max, and so on. It is a norm for there to be movies about nihilism and for people to continually talk about it. It is not a taboo at all, it has become something many acknowledge.
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