Mad Max Fury Road Opening
Mad Max is a thriller/action film about survival in a future vision of our world where society has collapsed. It is an exciting, awe-inspiring film with achingly beautiful cinematography.

The very start of the film cleverly establishes the world that the film take place in thorough narration over a black screen. There is one strong core narrator's voice and several others that phase in and out between muted sounds of explosions. Most sound like news reporters or politicians, but at the end there are comments from a few characters that show up later in the film. The history that lead to this damaged world is presented through these key phrases which can be summarised as; "Oil Wars", "Water Wars", "man-kind has gone rogue", "our bones are poisoned, we have become half lives" and as Max puts it "my world is fire and blood". Only one shot is used during this section which is a harsh black and white image of trees being blown down by thick dark smoke timed to match a voice saying "nuclear extermination". All of this takes place in just over half a minute but provides all the necessary information to understand how the world got to this point of anarchy.

The first real shot of the film is of an incredibly vibrantly coloured desert landscape with Max and the car drawn attention to by their darkness in contrast to the setting, almost silhouetted against the landscape. It is from high up amongst mountains or hills, and this vantage point presents the desolate and vast emptiness of the desert.

Tension is mounted in this scene by the stillness presented, which is at odd with the asynchronous voices and whispers of women and children who are not really there, but are an auditory representation of Max's hallucinations. The only movement is that of a two-headed lizard in the foreground scuttling closer to Max.

This stillness is suddenly shattered by Max stomping down on the lizard with his foot. This like all the diegetic sounds in this scene is exaggerated to be much louder and echo, increasing the drama and again presenting this sense of vastness and emptiness of the desert.

After puncturing the stillness with the death of the lizard, the scene becomes a flurry of movement with several close ups edited into a rapid pace. Starting with a close up of Max swallowing the lizard, then the items being kicked and shoved into the car, the car door slamming, and tires screeching as the car drives away with thick black smoke billowing from it. The suddenness and speed creates a sense of excitement and rush of adrenaline for the audience.

There is a brief sense of calm after a mid shot then long shot show the car driving away and the dust settles. Then suddenly three motorbikes and three cars race past the camera in a convoy, the placement of the camera making the audience feel like they are among the action as they seem to drive right around and over it. This makes sense of Max's abrupt departure and creates even more excitement and anticipation as this is clearly now a pursuit.

Note: This video continues after the clip of the first scene. I have written about the scene that ends at 1.57