《Mary and Max》
Australia
Director/Writer: Adam Elliott
Mary is an 8-year-old girl in Australia.
Her favorite moments are when it rains heavily, staying in the house, smelling the wet smell of her pet rooster, eating her favorite condensed milk, and watching her favorite cartoon "Nobrit".
8-year-old Mary has no friends.
In her life, no one paid attention to her and understood her.
Her pet was a rooster that her dad had picked up from the road. The toy is a "Noblite" doll made from chicken bones.
Because of the brown birthmark and appearance on her forehead, she felt a strong sense of inferiority and helplessness.
At school, classmates make fun of her, and back at home, her drunken mother is unable to take on the responsibility of caring for her, while her father is obsessed with making specimens of dead birds. The only grandfather who cared for her also left this world because he was too old.
And because she was too young, she couldn't understand herself.
The director of "Seven Years of Life" said, "Give me a man's seven years old, and I can give you her life."
Mary was a lonely, melancholy, and inferior girl, a character trait that lasted almost throughout her life.
Marx's troubles stemmed from his disapproval of this chaotic world.
Although Marx suffered from autism, he was almost a genius. He could read two pages at the same time, and as a Jew, he confirmed through his extensive reading that God did not exist and became an atheist.
He has a small world of his own, stable and orderly.
But in the chaotic City of New York, Marx's little world was constantly being destroyed—people were always littering with cigarette butts, not following signs, and chaos.
In a letter to Mary, he wrote: "When I was young, I wanted to be anyone but myself."
The 44-year-old Marx worked as a worker, into the army, and as a sanitation worker. He was overly obese because he was gluttonous with chocolate and good food.
In this chaotic world, good food is almost his only consolation, his best friend.
Like Mary, he loves the cartoon "Noblit" – because their world is orderly.
The 20-year friendship between Mary and Marx in the film, as well as letters and chocolates, are like a dialogue between the adult self and the young self.
This is a topic of "being understood."
Marx could answer almost all of Mary's doubts and comfort her hardships.
Mary also gave Marx the sincere friendship he needed most because of her innocence and cuteness.
The hardest thing for people is self-understanding, and we always expect to be seen and noticed.
In Mary's reply to Marx, she is different from the taciturn, inferior and lonely in real life, but warm and cheerful, lively and inquisitive. She even started saving money to go to New York.
Mary's parents died one after another. She fell in love with and married Ome Bamboo Horse. The beginning of a new life dilutes the grief over the loss of one's mother.
Instead, she was more energetic than ever.
In college, Mary's research on Asperger's disease impressed professors.
She became a rising star in psychology. She studied and is about to publish her book on the subject of Marx's Asperger's disease, but when she shared this achievement with Marx.
But It made Marx feel infinite anger and betrayal.
Face Marx's silent anger.
Mary destroyed all of her forthcoming works and crushed her own future with her own hands, just to gain Marx's forgiveness.
When she was depressed and ridiculed by her classmates for her birthmark, it was Marx who told her that she could tell her classmates who laughed at her that her birthmark represented that she could take charge of all the chocolate after she went to heaven.
It was Marx who answered her questions.
When her life was confused, Marx's every word was so real to support her.
For Marx, Mary was equally important and unique. Marx's three goals in life were to make an unimaginable good friend, to gather all the Abno dolls, and to have endless chocolates.
Before Marx won the lottery, he did not enjoy any of these three things. His father left him and his mother from an early age. When he was six years old, his mother shot herself.
He was never able to understand people's unpredictable expressions and non-conformist behavior.
Soul communication is noble because it allows the person concerned to see their extreme preciousness and uniqueness.
We may feel mediocre, but always expect another unique soul to pay attention to and care for ourselves.
This exchange of souls that abandons external images allows us to see the brilliance of our spiritual world.
And that's exactly what any sensitive, introverted, intelligent, melancholy person needs.
Marx's excessive quest for order, distance, and stability was the basis for his survival.
That's his way of living. In the chaotic city of New York, he maintained his own small world, no matter how chaotic the big world outside, as long as his small world was stable and did not collapse, everything was easy to say.
Mary's need to be understood, to be noticed, and to communicate seriously stemmed from the disregard of her birth parents. Although Mary was well fed, she was mentally deprived.
The birthmark is a symbol of Mary's inferiority to her own existence.
In another work directed by Adam Eliot, Harvie Krumpet, it is said: "Cigarettes can be used as an alternative to mother's nipples." (Cigarettes can be used as a replacement for a mother's nipple.) The lip period personality is characterized by always consuming more food than one's body actually needs. For Marx, what he ate was not chocolate hot dogs, not pasta burgers, but love.
But food cannot exist in place of love, so Marx needed a true friend.
Both are melancholy, intelligent, sensitive and introverted personality types. They are 37 years apart, have different genders, and live in different cities. (Same: The "disappearance" of the father during the growth process is highly similar to the "uncaring" of the mother) but their spirit is extremely compatible.
And this pure friendship is even more difficult for Mary and Marx to give up and attach great importance to.
No one is an island, and we are always looking for another self.
He loves good food, loves pure friendship, and is full of persistence and enthusiasm in his heart.
Just like yourself, holding out alone in this ridiculous world.