WARLORDS OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

WARLORDS OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (Willis: BATTLETRUCK as original title). Harley Cokliss, dir. New Zealand: Battletruck Films Limited (prod.) / New World Pictures (release), 1981 (copyright) / 1982 (release).

Important little film (for the study of SF machines) stressing theme to the point of propaganda. "After the Oil Wars," rural areas are terrorized by the "renegade army colonel Jacob Straker" and his high-tech (on the inside) "battletruck." Opposed to Straker is the young hero Hunter, who rides a Suzuki motorcycle, wears a white helmet, and lives alone in a passive-solar house (using ecologically-responsible methane to power his bike). Opposed to the macho, militaristic society of the battletruck is the commune Clearwater, with a headwoman as leader, the "old fashioned" polity of "strict democracy," and the musical motif of the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts." Straker uses his battletruck to attack the commune and to destroy Hunter's house. A blacksmith ultimately prepares a weapon for Hunter to fight the battletruck: an armored VW bug. Penultimate sequence has battletruck destroyed in fire and water; film ends with Hunter leaving the heroine (Straker's daughter) for a while, riding off on a horse, alone, toward snow-capped mountains. See for celebration of appropriate technology, including grenades. Cf. and contrast MAD MAX: FURY ROAD and the other films in the Mad Max series.