Think of apocalyptic films and the clothes aren’t, well...
futuristic. In The Last of Us : lumberjack rags and junked denim. In The Road : lumberjack rags and junked denim.
In A Quiet Place : lumberjack rags and junked denim (and a very sad and determined Emily Blunt). But in Furiosa , George Miller’s rusted and ruinous prequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road , it doesn’t look like a Carhartt sample sale at the end of the world. It looks like a BDSM orgy.
Which, in itself, is quite a look. But in the world of Furiosa , this hyper-sexual wardrobe is pretty normal for people who rape, pillage and barter their way from one war crime to the next. There are codpieces, and hundreds of topless men in low slung cargos .
The broadest, burliest men even elect for harnesses, which are essential for rock climbers, and encouraged at some deep end gay club nights. And lest we forget the most valuable commodity on the Fury Road: women – specifically, young and fertile women – who are wrapped in rudimentary wedding dresses of white linen, and caged with fanged chastity belts. Any eroticism is overwhelmed by repulsion (the grossest being the ‘The People Eater’, a monstrous and miserly higher-upper that spends much of his screen time toying with his clamped nipples).
But of course, you say: when the world goes to shit, so do our morals. Without civilization, we have depravity. Without order, we have chaos.
And yeah, that’s a common theme in apocalypse cinema – perhaps even mor.
