#oh noooooooooo #growing up at Citadel it wasn’t just that she couldn’t grieve for her mother #it was that the life at Citadel made many human reactions impossible #human habits and rituals and ways of being #so many things would have been shut off and shut down and put into emotional cold storage #because it’s not like Citadel was lacking ritual - they were lacking the basic humanity behind the need for ritual #all Citadel rituals were about control and containment (eg ONLY those based on fear/awe) #and any other human action with symbolic value that might have to do with community and memory - that’s gone #stamped out #there’s no lighting birthday candles in Citadel - only holy dread and worship #so she’s actually forgotten - you can see it on her face - totally forgotten this gesture #and she’s remembering another way To Be in mirroring it #yes - like this - we remember her #we acknowledge her - like *this* #with this gesture I thee recall #with this gesture I thee respect #7000 days of repressing that communal value and it comes back in 2 seconds (via harrietvane)
also I just want to point out that this gesture symbolizes both preservation–keeping someone with you forever–and closure because the rest of the Vuvalini did not do this until Furiosa told them her mother died and that whether it’s done immediately upon witnessing someone’s death (Valkyrie and Maddie) or two decades later it is just as important (via @hauntedjaeger)
Closure, yes. Logically I know the religion of the Citadel can’t be based on American white Evangelicism because of little details like it taking place in Australia, but comparing “Witness me/I live, I die, I live again” vs this gesture I was reminded of nothing so much as Slacktivist’s commentary on Rapture theology. It’s not about dying, it’s about evading or bypassing death. Same with Valhalla. It’s not about dying in glory but instead about being escorted to the gates (pearly or chrome as it were) and living forever.
This hand-to-heart gesture is not about living forever. It’s about accepting death, accepting its inevitability and absoluteness. And the grief that comes with that.
I apologize for coming into this thoughtful conversation with only one cry to shout but: CHARLIZE THERONS’S EYES!
/stomps around, flailing arms excitedly/ There’s so much in them in this movie. She does so much work with her gorgeous, amazing, talented, brilliant eyes and face.
Her acting here absolutely blew me away. You know without words that this is the first time she’s been able to grieve her mother. You know it in your bones. Just like you know holding Vaylkie in the Vuvalini embrace was like being able to breathe for the first time in decades for her.
And then when she learns that the Green Place is gone, spoiled and ruined…
I legit tear up remembering it.
The thing about Furiosa is that she is a woman of strength but not a Strong Female Character. Her strength is equal to her vulnerability. Her rage is equal to her love, it exists because of her love. Tears come to her eyes more than once, she loses a physical fight… she’s allowed weakness but it is portrayed as an organic part of her and her courage and strength. If she wasn’t the kind of person who had the love left to tear up when Angharad is lost she wouldn’t have been the woman who risked everything to help the sisters escape.
I’m repeating myself but… there’s a Green Place in her heart that has not been spoiled, has not gone to ruin, and Max’s advice to turn back around and take the Citadel only works because of what these people have in their hearts. Because of the way we, as this gesture shows, live in and remake each other’s hearts.
Because Furiosa knew the love of her people and hid it deep but never let it die; because of the freedom the sisters gave each other learning with Miss Giddy, fashioning new ideas, liberating their minds; because they were able to reach Furiosa out of that and turn the key on her heart, a group of women speaking to the child of a group of women as only they could; because the Vuvalini endured and survived and kept their ways, and that alone is enough of a victory to make change possible, enduring and surviving; because of the gift of kindness Capable gave Nux out of that; because Furiosa helped lead Max back to himself. So much so that Max, after warning against hope, comes back and asks them all to hope and give their lives for it.
Everyone liberates each other, everyone holds each other in their hearts. The kind of witnessing Nux asks for and the kind that Capable gives is about holding someone in your heart. Which is a recognition of death, but it’s also a recognition of relationship, the way people change each other, which is something Joe did not want - he wanted everyone to fruitlessly seek after relationship with him as their demi-god; only he could lead you to Valhalla, only his approval meant anything, etc, etc.
People connecting with each other and touching each other’s hearts is how liberation happens. And ALSO. This is an action movie, yes?
But if none of that work had been done–if, for one exmaple, the sisters had not mentally liberated themselves w/ Miss Giddy before escaping–the whole effort would have failed. It doesn’t matter how far you run or how hard you fight, if all you have is brute strength you are not free.
It really, really honors the kinds of non-physical work the sisters did and the relationship work the characters do for each other. Furiosa reaching out to Max is as important as any fight; the sisters changing Furiosa’s mind is the most important moment of all. And all of that happened in conversation. Relationship.
No wait you started on Theron’s eyes and came back to QUALITY ADDITIONS TO THIS THREAD OF META how did you do that?
What’s that Mary Shelley quote? “I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.” I think that encompasses Furiosa excellently. Stolen from her family, she finds herself cut off from satisfying the depths of her love. In indulging her rage, though, she manages to claw her way up the ranks to the point we see in the movie, where she fights her way back to a place from which she can love.
(Source: angharxd, via bonehandledknife)
