Breakdown

Film: Mad Max
Format: DVD from personal collection on big ol’ television

When I was far too young to see it, I saw The Road Warrior in the theater, and it rapidly became one of my favorite films. It may well have been the first ever VHS I ever bought. I didn’t see the first film, Mad Max for quite some time, and when I did, I saw the version with the dialogue “cleaned up” for an American audience, since, it was alleged, Americans were unable to understand the thick Australian accents of the original film. I’ve seen both films probably half a dozen times, but tonight was the first time in ages I’d seen Mad Max.

The most interesting thing to me about this film is not the cars (which are cool) or the revenge angle (which is a bit predictable and melodramatic), but the slow burn of society breaking down throughout the film. Most of the time, when we get a film that shows us the apocalypse, it’s a sudden thing—zombies crawling out of their graves, for instance, or an attack by aliens looking to destroy our world. This film is different. Here, the destruction of society comes not from outside forces or cataclysm but from slow decay and rot from the inside. Society in this film breaks down in pieces, not all at once, and this decline is what makes the film work more than anything else.