Film review - Mary and Max (2009) - Australia
 |
| Figure 1. Movie poster |
The film is about an 8 year old girl, living in Australia, and a 44 year old, living in New York, U.S.A, who become pen pals and start to write to each other about their day to day lives and experiences. The young girl is called Mary Daisy Dinkle and throughout the film is shown to be neglected by her parents. Her mother, Vera, is shown to be an alcoholic while her father, Noel, is always working or when he is home he is working on his taxidermy birds. The 44 year old man is called Max Horowitz and is shown to have been bullied as a child. Also, after his mother committing suicide when he was 6, he has also suffered with depression and other mental issues which has resulted in him having no friends, just like Mary.
The core themes shown throughout the film are suicide, anxiety, depression, mental illness, friendship, relationships. These themes are challenging due to some of the dark paths that can be taken. An example of this is when Mary tries to commit suicide due to her mental issues.
 |
| Figure 2. Making of |
The film used Claymation very effectively to help tell the story. In a sense, using Claymation almost softened the blow with the dark elements of the film, this is as a lot of children's animation use Claymation for the effect and because it almost looks childlike. I believe that is the film was live action then it would have been harder to keep the audience's attention and for the audience to understand what is happening, the film would also not have the same 'feel' to it.
The film was made using stop frame animation, stop frame animation is 'animation that is captured one frame at time, with physical objects that are moved between frames.' (Systems, n.d.). In order to create the film, 'Principal photography lasted over 57 weeks, using 133 separate sets, 212 puppets, and 475 miniature props, "including a fully functioning Underwood typewriter which apparently took nine weeks to design and build.' (En.wikipedia.org, 2019) I believe that the choice that director Adam Elliot took to have stop frame animation characters and environments was successful. This is, as said previous, it makes it easier for the audience to 'digest' the difficult topics brought up within the film such as suicide and mental illness.
 |
| Figure 3. Scene when Mary is little |
Throughout the years Mary and Max have claimed many awards, such as th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (2009), The Australian Directors Guild (2009), The Berlin International Film Festival (2009) and the Ottawa International Animation Festival (2009). It was also nominated for many other awards in 2010.
The director of the film is Adam Elliot, it was made in relation to his real life and a real life scenario. 'Elliot says “Mary and Max” is based on a true story – and in fact, the Australian filmmaker has enjoyed a 20-year pen pal friendship with a New Yorker who, like Max, has Asperger syndrome.' (Giles, 2009) Showing that some of the events that occurred in the film actually related to Elliot's own life experiences.
Bibliography:
En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Mary and Max. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_and_Max [Accessed 23 Jan. 2019].
Systems, D. (n.d.). Introduction to Stop Motion Animation - Dragonframe. [online] Dragonframe. Available at: https://www.dragonframe.com/introduction-stop-motion-animation/ [Accessed 17 Jan. 2019].
Illustrations list:
Figure 1. (2009) Movie poster. https://vulpeslibris.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/mary-and-max.jpg
Figure 3. (2009) Scene when Mary is little. http://thefancarpet.com/movies/maryandmax/
Comments
Post a Comment