"Mary and Max" (2009)

Fig. 1 "Marry and Max" Poster

Mary and Max’ written and directed by independent Australian stop-motion animation writer Adam Elliot and produced by the independent film and television production company ‘Melodrama Pictures’ is a clay animation, a form of stop motion animation, telling the story of two lonely individuals, the eight-year old Mary Daisy Dinkle from Australian and the 44-year old Max Jerry Horowitz from New York, finding each other in the bitter and depressing world they are living in, forming a long lasting bond of true friendship. Their encounter starts when Mary curiously wanted to know where babies come from in America while she believed they come from beer mugs in Australia. Soon she randomly picked a number from the New York section in the phone book which happened to be Max’. Their exchange of letters swiftly emerges as the emotional lifeline for their unfulfilling existence. While Mary was struggling with bullying at school, her mother’s alcoholism followed by child neglect and loneliness, Max was suffering from obesity, Asperger syndrome a form of autism, anxiety and loneliness which caused him to create his imaginary friend Mr. Ravioli who keeps him accompany along with his ill fish which frequently gets replaced throughout the movie.

Fig. 2 Max with new shirt

 However, the switch between treating a serious issue at one scene and in the other seeing Mary enthusing about her favourite TV show, shows the writer’s expertise and skillfulness in bringing a perfect balance within the animation. “Mary and Max is sad but uplifting, beautiful but haunting, and capable of shifting from whimsy to tragedy in a heartbeat.” (Buckmaster, 2014) The choice for clay animation over digital animation is in Elliot’s eyes pure preference, however, claymation is most commonly used for more childish story making it not suited for Elliot’s serious, adult and rather depressing, but sometimes humorous story.

Fig. 3 Marry sticking postmark

Adam Elliot is an independent Australian clay animation writer, producer and director born in 1972 in Berwick, Victoria, Australia whose works include: ‘Uncle (1996)’, ‘Cousin (1998)’, ‘Brother (1999)’, ‘Harvie Krumpet (2003)’, ‘Ernie Biscuit (2015)’ and ‘Mary and Max (2009)’. “I never really wanted to be a claymator, filmmmaker or even a writer; it was all an accident. I wanted to be a veterinarian but my marks at high school weren’t good enough.” (Indiewire, 2009) Even though he did not want to become an animator he enjoys success and recognition among many fellow animators. His work all have one thing in common: they are all based on true stories, biographies. In an interview Adam Elliot says himself: “I’m just fascinated by the human psyche, I love telling stories and biographies about my family and friends, which is why I came up with the word ‘clayography’“. (Mitchell, 2011) He explains that clayography is in his language a way of telling someone’s life story through clay animation.

‘Mary and Max’ was received quite positively by the public with a rating of 95% on ‘RottenTomato’, even for many top critiques on ‘TheGuardian’ they rate the movie an average of 3 out of 5 stars. Appropriating the overly positive overall rating by the public ‘Mary and Max’ enjoys a quite successful screening history as well winning four awards in total including: ‘Berlin International Film Festival’, ‘Ottawa International Animation Festival’, ‘Australian Directors Guild’ and ‘Asia Pacific Screen Award’, and being nominated for an additional in seven other categories. The movie was later on also theatrically released in Australia by ‘Icon Entertainment International’ in the same year only a couple months after its first film release at the ‘Sundance Film Festival’ the largest independent film festival in the United States.

Bibliography:
Buckmaster, L. (2014). Mary and Max: rewatching classic Australian films. (online) Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/australia-culture-blog/2014/may/30/mary-and-max-rewatching-classic-australian-films (Accessed on 09/02/2018)
Mitchell, B. (2011). A Conversation With Adam Elliot. (online) Available at: http://www.skwigly.co.uk/adam-elliot-interview/ (Accessed on 09/02/2018)
Indiewire (2009). Adam Elliot, “Mary and Max”: Flaws, Limitations, and Possibilities. (online) Available at: http://www.indiewire.com/2009/01/adam-elliot-mary-and-max-flaws-limitations-and-possibilities-71006/ (Accessed on 09/02/2018)

Illustration List:
Fig 1. "Marry and Max" Poster. At: https://media-cache.cinematerial.com/p/500x/s1huhowq/mary-and-max-japanese-movie-poster.jpg (Accessed on 09/02/2018)
Fig. 2 Max with new shirt. At: https://blog.animationstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Figure-3.png (Accessed on 09/02/2018)
Fig. 3 Marry sticking postmark.  At: http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/1175282-3x2-940x627.jpg (Accessed on 09/02/2018)