1976, eight-year-old Mary? Daisy. Dingle is a little girl in Melbourne, Australia. She has a flat face, a garlic nose, freckles on her face and an ugly birthmark like tape on her forehead. I like the cartoon Noblitt, sweetened condensed milk and chocolate. Mary's mother is an alcoholic, while her father who works in a tea packaging factory only likes to make bird specimens on weekdays. Lonely Mary has no friends. One day, she came to new york City on a whim. She suffers from Asperger's syndrome, autism, anxiety, inability to recognize people's expressions, inability to express emotions through her face, and no friends? Jerry. Holovitz wrote a letter asking where American children came from, and attached a cherry chocolate bar. Marx, 44, is autistic and obese. He also happens to like watching "Noblitt" cartoons and eating chocolate.
Their pen pal relationship lasted from 1976 to 1994, during which they experienced many ups and downs until Mary finally came to new york to visit Marx as an adult ... During this period, Mary and Max had ups and downs, Marx's anxiety reached the brink of collapse several times, and Mary almost bid farewell to her bleak life. The story is full of a black and grotesque sense of humor, which is full of English comedy.
Mary, 8, is as lonely as Marx, 44. The difference is that Mary is looking forward to breaking this loneliness with a childlike heart that has never experienced the world, while Marx is deliberately avoiding this world with a decadent heart that has experienced wind and rain. Mary has a chicken "Izzy" that never lays eggs.
Marx, on the other hand, has a series of goldfish "Henry" who can't keep alive. In the days without friends, the only thing that can communicate with them is these dumb animals. Mary yearns for love and is full of illusions about it, but she can't get it, even if she gets it by accident, she will eventually lose it. However, Marx was born autistic and insensitive to love. Sometimes, it happens that a blind woman can recognize human expressions. Need to look at the "expression guide" to distinguish what is happiness and what is anger, but this fat middle-aged Jewish uncle has a childlike innocence.
He tried his best to answer all Mary's strange questions sincerely, although many times the answers were crazier than the questions or even completely inappropriate. I especially like the trivia of his boring life in his letters, such as his weekly dinner recipes (all awkward Hebrew Jewish names), and the old lady next door smells like cough syrup mixed with urine.
And the warm little Jewish hat he insisted on wearing because he didn't believe in God. And those earth-shattering events that changed the fate of ordinary people, including serious illness, winning prizes and death, were taken away by him, and the feathers seemed to have no weight. Look, what an anomaly this is! This dramatic life story not only pleases the soul, but also tortures the human spirit. Mary can get something, such as love, but she can't grasp it in the end; Marx is not interested in anything, but sometimes he has some good luck, such as a woman's kiss and winning the lottery.
But none of this can make him happy. That's not what he needs. You can't get what you need, and what you get is not what you need most. This is the helplessness of life. However, as Marx said in his letter, his friendship with Mary was based on an "imperfect" deformity, which eventually made him transcend "injury, confusion, betrayal, discomfort, distress and asthma" and gave a friend the most sincere spiritual hug in his life.
The story of Mary and Max is so simple that there are not many lines. Expressed in an unpretentious or even seemingly "clumsy" image, it can give a deep impression. In today's world, living materials are getting richer and richer, but it is strange that our survival is getting more and more difficult, it is difficult to realize ourselves and create value, the lack of social trust and the indifference of interpersonal relationships sometimes really make us feel at a loss. When dealing with Marx's story paragraphs, directors tend to use more excuses to ridicule, and a large number of narratives run through, extending the objects touched by tragedy to the whole American social class.
A person who doesn't know what love is and lacks sufficient cognitive ability is likely to be discriminated against and marginalized. Moreover, after leaving his family, Marx voluntarily gave up his pursuit of religious spirit and denied the existence of God. To outsiders, this eccentric middle-aged man can only be a wandering corpse. He has no spiritual support and doesn't care about the gains and losses of life. He became an "invisible man" and lost his social value. . They are the most humble little people and losers in the eyes of the secular, but they have their own love, their own persistence and their own desires, even if they only know each other. It is said that lonely people are shameful, but their loveliness has never been paid attention to. With the help of science and technology, while our activity space is getting bigger and bigger, the space of our mind is getting narrower and narrower, so narrow that we sometimes have to curl up in the network and stare at this strange world with innocent eyes like Mary.
To some extent, the story of Mary and Max is a microcosm of our real world, although it was in the last century. The difference is that we communicate with each other by writing letters, but now we weave myths through the Internet. Especially when everyone is condensed into a mobile phone number or QQ number, the distance between hearts is actually enlarged, and we even lose the expectation and concentration maintained by the letters between Mary and Max. When we constantly change our personal signatures to show the existence of our network, Mary's tears on paper are as rare and precious as diamonds.
Mary and Max has a lot of tim burton's image style, which is absurd and exaggerated, with a touch of humanistic care in the gloomy tone. The film portrays Mary and Australia as taupe, and when it goes to new york where Marx is located, it becomes dark black, just like Marx's gloomy mood. In addition to these two colors, the whole movie is a little bit of poor red, women's lips and some ornaments, red tassels on Marx's hat and torches in the hands of the Statue of Liberty (the Statue of Liberty also has an ugly face like Marx).
Even the birthmark on Mary's forehead is just a nasty "yellow shit" color. These red patches are dotted with the monotonous picture of the film, which is also a trace of warmth left to us in the unpleasant atmosphere of the film. Under the bright colors of this camp, two equally lonely and gloomy worlds have been created. When the two worlds came into contact, the bright red torch on the Statue of Liberty seemed to herald a warm beginning and a helpless ending.
There are many death stories in the film, all of which are abnormal deaths. Mary's grandfather died of drinking ammonia, her father was washed away by the sea, her mother died of drinking preservatives by mistake, Marx's mother shot herself, and even his neighbor Ivy hung up in a very meaningless way. This kind of death continued to the two protagonists. Mary was hanged under the torture and blow of love and friendship. All these deaths seem to be an extreme mockery of life and the world. Each one is a hilarious scene of genius when viewed alone, but it is so sad and helpless when placed in the whole film under the calm and deep narrative of the narrator.
Like all autistic people, Marx was an idiot in some ways, but a genius in others. He has super computing ability and rigorous logical thinking ability, but he is always puzzled by people's behavior, just as he can't understand the lip prints printed on women's faces. All this makes him crazy. Any slight change in the outside world will stimulate his spiritual world. His mind is never as calm as his appearance. The red tassel on his hat is very beautiful. Marx, who is only half a fool for a long time, has a selfless and broad heart under his ugly appearance and strange behavior. He became the only spiritual sustenance of little Mary and accompanied her to grow up all the time.
Marx reminds me of the old Karl in The Travels of the Flying House, and the tragic fatalism that pervades my life makes me feel palpitation. In the American TV series "The Surgeon Gray", a sick old man described his countdown life like this: "All milestones have passed, graduation ceremony, getting married and having children, retiring ... There is no new milestone for the rest of my life, only approaching death step by step." One day, everyone will realize that they have no chance and no need to improve their future, and there is no suspense in life. Only in this way can people truly understand what they have squandered and missed. ?
Only when the life trajectories of two people finally meet and the colors of two different worlds on the screen finally reconcile, will the film leave us with another kind of peaceful death. Fortunately, the red tassels and hairpins on the heads of the two protagonists who forgot to make friends still shine brightly in this cruel and helpless situation, which may indicate the hope and significance of life. Under the classic narrative of the film, the cruelty and helplessness of life become as meaningful and thought-provoking as a trickle after being teased in black and white pictures.
The most touching thing is Marx's reply, which will always be his reply: "I forgive you because you are not perfect, you have shortcomings, and so do I … We can't choose our own shortcomings, they are also part of us, and we can only adapt;" However, we can choose our friends. I'm glad I chose you. ..... you are my best friend. You are my only friend. "Such tolerance and forgiveness, I think, is the core of' love'.
It is always easy for us to appreciate a person's advantages: beautiful appearance, strong physique, strong economic strength, intelligent mind, enviable background … all these are always used to enhance their own value; However, the shortcomings of tolerance, such as Marx's obesity and insufficient contact frequency, require the most sincere understanding and care for Mary's personality violation that Marx is treated as a case. This understanding cannot be frivolous verbal perfunctory, nor can it be a purposeful gesture. It's a half bottle of tears from Mary, and it's a full set of "Noblitt dolls" by Marx. ?
Mary finally found Marx. What a lucky thing it is! One is a girl bathed in Australian sunshine, and the other is an otaku living in a cold apartment in new york. Originally, there was no possibility of intersection between their lives, but when they accidentally became pen pals, every time they talked and listened to each other became a beacon of their life river. This simple attachment warmed the first half of Mary's life and the second half of Marx's life.
Therefore, when one big hand and one small hand finally held together, the pamphlet hanging on Marx's chest and every ironed obedient letter on the ceiling were still moving, and I couldn't help crying in front of the screen. Not love, not affection, but far beyond friendship. It is difficult to describe in words, and it is beyond logic and cannot be repeated. After abandoning all age, appearance, identity, race, gender, belief, nationality and culture, two hearts finally burned honestly for a second, which is the most dazzling light.
Without Marx, Mary's less bumpy life might not be known, and vice versa. Because of the age gap with Marx, Mary's worldview and good wizard can be exposed, but she never thought that Marx was a freak with incomplete personality and knowledge structure. Only in this way can two people become pen pals for twenty years and expect each other's support at the critical moment of life. If everything goes smoothly in real life, there is no need to find invisible friends.
A pen pal story that was supposed to be a sensation was dissolved by personal misfortune. Eliot, the director, has always maintained a "frustrated optimism" and permeated his feelings for friendship into clay figurines. The "M" on the typewriter keyboard is a clever "key" set by the director in the film. The initials of their surnames became a bond, and Marx could not forgive Mary for a moment, so he cut it off himself.
Good Mary is too dependent on Marx. Without this key, life will lose its luster and even the husband will leave him. The two suddenly broke off diplomatic relations, and the film took a turning point, exposing everyone's attachment and fragility, such as Marx and Mary, and so did the audience. In addition to Mary and Marcos, there are many supporting characters with distinct personalities in the film. Their appearance and hobbies are deliberately exaggerated and enlarged, and they are actually ordinary people in life. Beggars, landlords, parents, neighbors ... were captured by cartoonists' pungent brushstrokes, and they were made into villains and put on the screen, igniting the audience's sense of deja vu.
Elliot is always full of feelings for life. The previous life of Naked Harvey is more similar to the traditional silent film, and the protagonist finally runs away, which is a bit like Chaplin's "tramp Charlot". Mary and Max added a lot of inner monologues and self-analysis, and shaped Marx's sense of alienation with the contrast of internal and external scenes. Under the hierarchical new york model, it is closed and lonely, which accords with the personal experience of urbanites. Even though Marx's fate is an exaggerated and sensitive extreme state, his simple quality and cherish of friendship still shine with the original light of ordinary people.
Everyone will have valuable friends in his life, whether one or two, they are all the wealth of your life. Just like Marx, when he died, he could lie comfortably on the sofa, and when he looked up, he could see the letters on the whole ceiling. Nothing is more gratifying than this kind of love.
After experiencing the ups and downs of life, Mary finally held Marx's hand. Although Marx has been guarding his chocolate by now, their hearts have always been closer than the hands that are held together. There are so many regrets in life, perhaps it is the sustenance of half a bottle of tears or the sharing of a chocolate bar. This little innocence is enough. Enough to break the barriers of the melodramatic world and become the last generation of women in our hearts, a little warm. ...
Director of Danish Film Festival Jeffrey? Gailmo said: "This is a film about two lives, two lives. Both protagonists are physically disabled. Eliot painted two portraits of us with clay. This film is full of unexpected touches, jokes and plots that force us to think. The score is also a bright spot-the symphony that Marx wrote to Mary for the first time was accompanied by the rapid rhythm of the typewriter, and Mary was surrounded by sadness in a semi-conscious state. The classic Que Sera Sera in Hitchcock's old film "People Who Know Too Much" was surrounded by sadness, and the crooning in the ending opera "Madame Butterfly" was moving.
I believe the audience will applaud Eliot's works after seeing the film, because he made an intriguing and meaningful film.
Remember, the world is weird, crazy and chaotic, but fortunately we still have friendship.