I personally do not see the benefits of 3D and believe it adds nothing to the cinema going experience, apart from an added expense. It’s has a detrimental affect on independent cinema, with Cineplex’s reserving the few digital projectors for 3D films, forcing smaller films to distribute through the more costly medium of 35mm, and it encourages filmmakers to concentrate on gimmickry instead of storytelling.
Right, now that that’s all out the way, it’s my pleasure to say that my favorite film of the year is an animation that uses good-old stop-motion, without a sniff of 3D nonsense.
Based on a true story, Mary and Max is a dark, brooding tale of friendship between an aging New Yorker, voiced by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and an eight-year-old Australian, voiced by Toni Collette. The two strike up a warm long-distance pen-pal friendship that spans over a period of twenty years, bonding initially over their shared love of chocolate and a children's cartoon called The Noblets.
Director Adam Elliot eschews the shine of this years other animation successes: Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, etc. Elliot instead favors an intensely muted colour palette of browns, grays and blacks, perfectly matching the somber, gloomy melancholy that presides over the lives of the characters. Interestingly, Elliott decides to starkly contrast the colours used for the New York landscape to that of Australia. In New York there are only blacks, grays and whites with a smatter of red, whilst the Australian colours consist of a drab sun-kissed red. This tonal juxtaposition makes for stunning imagery and works wonderfully when the two worlds meet in the films climax.
The merits of Claymation are clear to see. There’s a tremendous amount of inventiveness and character in the craft and it somehow seems that there’s comparatively much more graft and endeavour in the art of Claymation than there is in CGI animation. That might not actually be the case, but it certainly feels that way and as a result there is a heightened sense of admiration and awe attached to it. Each second of the tactile stop motion is crammed with detail that brings what are essentially just lumps of clay to life.
I can’t think of any significant flaws in the film. It’s wonderfully weighted, perfectly timed, emotionally poignant without any schmaltz and visually creative and exciting.
Despite the slightly depressing subject matter the film does not lack mirth. There are wonderful moments of joy that arrive from the strangest of places, making the feeling enormously powerful. Whilst some might bemoan the fact that it's not suitable for children, I think it's great to get an animation all to ourselves.
