"Mary and Max" REVIEW

An incredible story of Mary and Max was made by Australian director Adam Elliot in 2009.

Two lonely souls, the meeting of which is impossible in real life, find each other and become penpals. Mary Daisy Dinkle is an eight-year-old girl from Australia with the eyes of  "the colour of muddy puddles" and a birthmark of "the colour of poo". And  Max Jerry Horowitz who is a lonely 44-year-old Jewish atheist from New York , "smells like licorice and old books" and whose circle of friends consists of  TV set, personal psychoanalyst and a sick aquarium fish.

A gray world, in which Max and Mary live, is full of annoying sounds, unpleasant scents, and even the Statue of Liberty looks pretty beaten up by life. But this no longer saddens neither the girl nor the man: their lifelong dream of finding a friend has finally come true. Now they have one thing to do: Mary - learning how to love yourself, Max - overcoming the nervous attacks that appear every time he reads a new Mary’s letter.(see fig.1)

Figure 1. Max's nervous attack (2014)

The reason for the penpalling was Mary’s puzzling question: "Where babies come from in America". Mary says that in Australia children are found in beer mugs, then in America they should come from cola cans. Mr. Horowitz, whose was randomly selected from the phone book of New York, senses his soul mate on the opposite side of the planet and answers Mary’s question. In addition to a naive and honest view of the world of these two different people, it turned out that they have a passion for chocolate bars, some cartoon about creatures living in a teapot and utter social dysfunction.

"Mary and Max" mostly consists of various quotes from conversation of these two characters, which are well-read by voice-overs, skillfully and funny acted out by dolls(puppets) and arranged in chronological order:  first letters date back to the mid-70's, the last - the beginning of the 90's.

. Narrated by clever shots, this gray story of "Mary and Max" is very far from the Hollywood tearjerker. As Adam Elliot said himself :"It's not the sort of story you'd see from (Hollywood studios) DreamWorks or Pixar.F It deals with different or marginalized characters"(Bob Tourtellotte, 2009) This picture has black humor and, along with kindness, it sends a strong message to all of us that" "Friends are the family we choose for ourselves"."Mary and Max" is a tragicomedy. On the one hand, you cannot remain indifferent to different topics and events that unfold there. But on the other hand, all tragic moments are flavored with humor and a little touch of self-irony. One genre very neatly and quickly intertwines with another. Luke Buckmaster(2009) is correct when he states that "One moment we're watching the blogs of plasticine make poo jokes, and the next we're confronted by heartrending explorations of heavy things - mental illness, alcoholism, loneliness, sociology."

Figure 2. Mary and Max "meeting" (2015)

Despite all the gloom and emotional stress, this film leaves a ray of light in all of us. After all, despite all the obstacles, tragedies, diseases and phobias, this friendship lasted until the very end. Tears in a bottle(see fig.3), clumsy drawings, chocolates, cans of condensed milk, alternative versions of where the children come from and confessions of two people that will never meet - all these little things of which our life consists, are enough to cause a smile, not only on your face, but also in your heart. As Andrew Todd(2015) said: "Mary and Max is a classic of animated cinema, effortlessly eliciting the holy grail of audience reactions: laughter through tears."

Figure 3. Mary's tears for Max who does not cry (2014)

Bibliography:
1. Tourtellotte, B. (2009) Sundance opens with hope for indie film. At: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sundance-opening/sundance-opens-with-hope-for-indie-film-idUSTRE50F05Z20090116 (Accessed on 31 January 2018) 
2. Buckmaster, L. (2009) Mary and Max film review: plasticine-powered profundities. At: https://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2009/04/09/plasticine-powered-profundities-film-review-mary-and-max/ (Accessed on 31 January 2018) 
3. Todd, A. (2015) Love Yourself First: Mental Illness In MARY AND MAX. At: http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/06/19/love-yourself-first-mental-illness-in-mary-and-max (Accessed on 31 January 2018) 

Illustrations:
1. Figure 1. Newbutt, N. (2014)[Film Still] https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=704, accessed on 1 February 2018.
2. Figure 2. Alves, M.(2015)[Film Still] https://milcaretas.com/2015/03/20/mary-e-max-uma-amizade-diferente/, accessed on 1 February 2018.
3. Figure 3. Lavine, M.M.(2014)[Film Still] https://reeltalk.areavoices.com/2014/05/22/indiewatch-mary-and-max-a-heavy-hitting-claymation-delight/, accessed on 1 February 2018.