Mary & Max - or: Do sheep shrink when it rains?

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Mary & Max - or: Do sheep shrink when it rains?
Original title Mary and Max
Country of production Australia
original language English
Publishing year 2009
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 10
Rod
Director Adam Elliot
script Adam Elliot
music Dale Cornelius
camera Gerald Thompson
cut Bill Murphy
occupation
synchronization

Mary & Max - or: Do sheep shrink when it rains? (Original title: Mary and Max ) is an Australian clay animation film from 2009 directed by Adam Elliot . It is Elliot's first full-length film and was the opening film of the Sundance Film Festival 2009. In addition, the film won the 2009 AniMovie feature film competition at the Stuttgart Animation Festival and received the Cristal d'Annecy at the Festival d'Animation Annecy for best feature film.

action

Mary Daisy Dinkle is a lonely eight-year-old girl who lived in 1976 in Mount Waverly, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Her mother is a kleptomaniac alcoholic , her father works in a tea bag factory and in his spare time he prepares dead birds. Mary's only friend is her rooster named Ethel . Her grandfather told her that babies were found on the bottoms of beer glasses. Curious about how babies are born in America, she decides to ask an American. By chance she chooses a name from a telephone book: Max Jerry Horowitz.

Max is an overweight, 44-year-old New York City resident . He's got Asperger's , which makes it difficult for him to interact with other people. He lives in a small apartment with several pets. His only human relationships are with his weekly Weight Watchers meetings and visits to his psychiatrist. He receives Mary's letter in which she tells him about herself. The letter also includes a self-portrait and a chocolate bar . Despite his initial confusion about the unusual letter, he decides to reply to Mary. He tells her about his everyday observations and answers her question about the conception of babies - his mother had told him that babies hatch from eggs hatched by rabbis if you are Jewish and by Catholic nuns if you are a Christian , and from prostitutes if you are an atheist.

Max and Mary continue to exchange letters exchanging creative solutions to their everyday problems and amazement about life. Mary fights other children's teasing and is too shy to speak to her stuttering neighbor Damian, with whom she has fallen in love. Max wonders about the people he watches and that they don't understand him. He has panic attacks when he receives letters from Mary, and one is strong enough to send him to a mental hospital for eight months. During this time, Max is unable to write back, whereupon Mary is devastated about the alleged loss of her boyfriend.

After his release, Max's life is back to normal and safe for him. When he wins the lottery, he can check two of his “life goals” off his list: a lifetime supply of chocolate and the complete collection of characters from his favorite television series, the Noblets . However, to complete his list, he is still missing the point "Find friends (not invisible)"; his imaginary friend Mr. Ravioli had recently left him forever. His thoughts keep wandering back to Mary, and so he decides to write to her again. He tells her that he has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, which makes him see the world differently than other people. Overjoyed to hear from her boyfriend again, Mary eventually begins to study psychology with a focus on Max's condition to learn more about his behavior.

A few years later, shortly after his retirement, Mary's father dies in an accident, leaving her enough money to study. She is graduating in psychology hoping to find a cure for Max's problem. Her great love Damian goes to the same university, but Mary is still too shy to speak to him. A short time later, her mother also dies (from accidentally drinking preservatives when she is drunk), whereupon Mary and Damian find each other and eventually marry.

Mary publishes a book about her research into mental disorders, using Max as a case study. She sends Max the first copy, but Max is deeply offended - he had already written to her saying that he saw his Asperger's syndrome as part of his personality, and that it needed neither treatment nor even a "cure". In response, he removes the letter "M" from his typewriter and sends it to her without comment. Mary then falls into deep depression. She changes into an image of her mother, loses all interest in her studies and lets herself go after waiting for weeks in vain for mail from Max. She becomes an alcoholic, whereupon Damian leaves her. Completely broken, she tries to commit suicide but survives. Shortly afterwards her neighbor appears, a veteran of the Second World War , who shortly before had conquered his agoraphobia . He brings her a package from Max, who sent Mary his complete "Noblets" collection as a token of his forgiveness.

A year later, Mary and her baby, whom she has from Damian, set off for New York to visit Max. She enters his apartment and finds him dead on his sofa. After the initial shock, she notices that each of her letters has been pinned to the ceiling by Max. She realizes that Max died happily and weeps in joy and sadness for her only friend.

Reviews

"[The] tragicomic story [of the main characters] is heartbreakingly sad and heartwarming at the same time, and one can only wonder how much one feels, suffers and laughs with them. Although they are only lumps of plasticine. "

- Anke Sterneborg on sueddeutsche.de

"Warm, sad, funny - Adam Elliot plays in his stop-motion tragic comedy" Mary & Max "masterfully on the keyboard of sensations and takes you into a world of tongue-in-cheek ideas, black-humored comments and weird, lovable characters. A loving cinema gem about emotional isolation and true friendship. "

- Ulf Lepelmeier on Filmstarts.de

“The film enriches the letter friendship of the two outsiders that has lasted for decades with a ludicrous wealth of bizarre ideas, anecdotes, allegories and wisdom Life. And that [sic] succeeds in this apart from any kind of noise or moral imperatives, is the great achievement of this touching film. "

- Robert Zimmermann on Critic.de

synchronization

role English speaker German speaker
Mary Daisy Dinkle (adult) Toni Collette Gundi Eberhard
Mary Daisy Dinkle (young) Bethany Whitmore Valentina Bonalana
Max Jerry Horowitz Philip Seymour Hoffman Helmut Krauss
Damian Eric Bana Sebastian Schulz
Vera Renée Geyer Tina Engel
teller Barry Humphries Boris Aljinovic

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Certificate of release for Mary & Max - or: Do sheep shrink when it rains? Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2010 (PDF; test number: 122 924 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Mary & Max - or: Do sheep shrink when it rains? Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Compassion for lumps of clay. In: sueddeutsche.de. August 27, 2010, accessed July 5, 2018 .
  4. ↑ http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/100926-Mary-%26-Max/kritik.html
  5. ↑ http://www.critic.de/film/mary-max-oder-schrumpfen-schafe-wenn-es-regnet-2249/

Web links