Flick of The Day: Mary and Max

From strange beginnings can great things grow. At first glance a claymation adaptation of the true life pen pal relationship between an obese middle aged New Yorker and a lonely young girl from the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia would not seem like a promising idea for a film. However, in the hands of Australian animator Adam Elliott it becomes a truly ground breaking piece of cinema. Today's flick of the day is Mary & Max.

Mary & Max

In 1976, a young girl named Mary, voiced by Toni Collette struggles with loneliness due to her alcoholic mother and emotionally absent father. One day on a trip to the post office, she picks a name from the New York phone directory and decides to write to them. Her letter reaches Max Horowitz voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman, a 44 year old Jewish man who struggles with obesity and Asperger's syndrome. Amazingly, these two misanthropes who live on the margins of their own society find in each other a friend with which to converse and share their doubts, worries and neuroses and love of chocolate over the course of 20 years. Where they initially appear as oddballs and outsiders, we gradually see that both are perceptive and aware of the world around them and perhaps more importantly far nicer human beings than those supposedly normal folk.

A work of incredible depth and emotional maturity, it transcends its genre to tell a tale that everyone should know. It is not a happy story and not for children but it is a worthy one all the same. Rarely have issues such as mental illness, loneliness and isolation been dealt with in such a mature manner in a piece of cinema. It's a dark and beautiful picture and one will surely be left with a lot to think over for having seen it.

While the animation is the star of the show, the voice work is excellent throughout. Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman are unrecognisable in their voice characters and perhaps that is as it should be. While the film shows a bleak view of the world, it is this bleakness which gives it such an emotional punch and it is perhaps closer to the reality of many lives than we dare to admit. The relationship between the two allows Mary to open up to the world, indeed the animation noticeably brightens as her own confidence improves while Max finds that which he has sought all his life, a friend.

Overall then this is a triumph of a film with a deep message about what friendship means. As the film notes at its close "God gave us relatives, thank God we can choose our friends".

Flick of The Day: Akira

When I began writing the Daily Flick almost a year ago, I had two main aims. Firstly, I would attempt to review and recommend a film a day and as anyone who has read the blog will attest, I have been less than successful. Today's film is number 139 if you are interested. My second aim was to try and include as diverse a range of cinema as possible. This has been more successful as I have touched on innumerable genres and style of film making and included as much foreign language cinema as I felt necessary. However, there is one area in which I have been remiss for it is not a genre I am overly familiar with, Japanese Anime. Today's flick of the day is Akira.

Akira

A touchstone for the genre and perhaps the most influential example of its breadth, Akira is based on the manga series of the same name by Katsuhiro Otomo. In a post apocalyptic Neo Tokyo in the year 2019, a group of young bikers stumble across a government research project. Tetsuo, a disgruntled and oddly independent member of the gang becomes imbued with strange telekinetic powers of an insidious nature. These powers are linked to the government project centred on a being called Akira. As the military pursue Tetsuo and the energy source begins to take him over, we learn the dark secret at the heart of it and of the reconstruction of Japan after the last war.

Darkly atmospheric and highly stylised, Akira is a joy to watch with the stunningly rendered skyline of Neo Tokyo dominating many scenes and a level of detail in the animation not normally seen in anime of this time. The storyline is at times overly complex and perhaps too overwrought for an adult audience to truly engage with it. This not the point however, let the story flow over you and indulge yourself in the bright colours and textures of the animation. The first fully realised anime picture with long drawn out scenes and lip synced dialogue in the original Japanese version, for anyone with even a passing interest in the genre, it is a real must see. For those with little or no knowledge of the subject, it is a fine jumping off point. 

One of the main critiques of the film would be its attempt to condense a six volume comic with over 2,000 pages into a two hour film. This is perhaps the reason for the dense plotting which can be difficult to follow. Perhaps the film deserves credit for attempting to tell such a lengthy story but it doesn't quite manage it. It is perhaps telling that the long rumoured and always obligatory Pointless American Live Action Remake or P.A.L.A.R for short is to be split into two films.

All in all, this is an excellent example of Japanese anime and  many Western fans initiation to the genre.Its success upon release in 1988 created a market for anime in the West that has only grown since then. The works of artists like Miyazaki and Otomo has gradually become more well known since with Miyazaki's Spirited Away winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2002. Even for those with little or no knowledge of anime like myself, there is much to enjoy. 

Flick of The Day: Persepolis

I often feel like I am banging a drum, repeating a point of view in films of a similar theme, so do forgive me if this seems repetitious. A couple of weeks back, we looked at Waltz With Bashir, noting how it showed the power of animation to tell important stories that would otherwise not be possible without a vast Hollywood budget. Today's flick of the day, Persepolis is a similarly powerful story told in an artful manner.

Persepolis

Based on the best selling autobiographical graphic novel of the same name by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis is the tale of a childhood lived under the fundamentalist regime of the Iranian Ayatollahs. Opening with Marjane sitting in the departure lounge of a Paris airport pondering her life, before we see her as 9 year old living in Tehran in 1978, a Bruce Lee fan that dreams of being a prophet. Adored by her grandmother, voice by Catherine Deneuve, Marjane has a unique view of the world around her and is at heart a free spirit. Of course with the fall of the Shah in 1979 and the rise of a religiously strict and intolerant regime, her world is thrown upside down. Marjane, being a teenager rebels against the rigid control of life under the Ayatollahs, listening to Heavy Metal and Punk, wearing denim and openly questioning the lies of her teachers as they cover up for the abuses of the State. Fearing for her safety and hoping to give her freedom to express herself, she is sent to a boarding school in Vienna in 1983. Of course Catholic nuns have never been known for their freedom of expression and Marjane finds herself once again railing against the system. After a series of events, Marjane finds herself sleeping rough for a few months before returning to Tehran in 1987. She attempts to live under the regime, attending University and eventually marrying, but her political dissent in a country where mass executions for political beliefs and petty religious absurdities have become common  place. Ultimately Marjane is forced to leave Iran, perhaps forever but it will always remains in her heart.

Although the film is for the most part shot in a stark black and white animation, it never feels weighed down or depressing despite dealing with subject matter far beyond anything dealt with in your average American animated film. This is perhaps because the animation is warm and familiar, however the use of black and white does give the film an air of oppression throughout. This air wonderfully recreates what life must have been like for a young girl trying to find her feet under a totalitarian regime. The film only takes on colour in the prologue and epilogue, the rest is shot through with this oppressive black and white, tellingly including the Vienna scenes.  This could become tiresome quite quickly and make the film unwatchable given the subject matter however it is saved by two things, stunningly beautiful visual invention and great storytelling. It is playful and beauty is found in even the darkest of scenes. The storytelling aspect is that humour is used throughout to leaven proceedings.

I remember I led a peaceful, uneventful life as a little girl. I loved fries with ketchup, Bruce Lee was my hero, I wore Adidas sneakers and had two obsessions: Shaving my legs one day and being the last prophet of the galaxy.

This is what film making is supposed to be about and anyone willing to get past the idea that animation is for entertaining young children and should thus be easily enjoyed, will find much to enjoy here. It is also a must see for anyone with even a passing interest in middle eastern history of the late 20th Century.

Flick of The Day: Waltz With Bashir

Our first animated flick of the day is this 2008 film from Israeli film maker Ari Folman, Waltz With Bashir. It is part documentary, part personal memoir, examining the events that unfolded one night in September of 1982 in two Beirut refugee camps that would soon become known throughout the world, Sabra and Shatila. 

Waltz With Bashir

In 2006, Ari Folman met an old friend from his Army service days who told him about the nightmares he has of those days, the darkest of the Lebanon War. In a vivid scene he describes his nightmares, in which he is chased through the streets by 26 vicious dogs.  This surprises Folman, as he has no memory of the period, bad or otherwise. That night as he sleeps, he has a dream himself. He is walking from the sea with his fellow soldiers as flares are fired over the city of Beirut. This inspires him to investigate his past, to find out what it is that he has forgotten. He travels around the world, meeting old friends and acquaintances from that period trying to fill in the gaps. Piece by piece, the story comes together and we see what he saw in Lebanon resulting in a shocking conclusion that will surely haunt him for the rest of his days. The film ends with actual news footage of that day with no comment, no music and is an incredibly powerful coda.

If there were any doubt that animation held the power to tackle substantive and adult issues then this film will sweep them away. Animation is just as valid an art form as any other, and is not only for the entertainment of children. A story like this would be almost impossible to film normally without a major Hollywood budget and even then it is doubtful whether the tale could be told with such vigour.  The animation is sharp and bright and it moves along at the pace of the investigative thriller it is.  The ending when it comes, is shocking and revealing. For those unfamiliar with the events of Sabra and Shatila, they were refugee camps populated by Palestinian families fleeing the civil war and by September of 1982, the two camps were under the protection of the Israeli Defence Forces. On September 14th, the Christian President of Lebanon,  Bachir Gemayel was assassinated. This enraged his supporters who mistakenly believed his murder to be the work of the Palestinians, when in reality it was orchestrated by Syrian agents. They sought revenge and the nearest target were the refugees supposedly under the protection of the Israelis. However, under the direct orders of Ariel Sharon, the Israel Defence Minister, the Christians were allowed to enter the camps and told the Palestinians were responsible  for the assassination. While the Israeli soldiers stood by, they massacred 3,000 men, women and children.

The imagery is brilliantly entertaining throughout, often viewing events through the innate psychedelia of the human mind. I think Folman achieves his goal of getting a message across by creating a film that is always entertaining, never po faced. While dealing with a harrowing event in a sober manner, it manages to be gripping throughout and until the final frame wears its subject matter lightly. This is art of the highest form.

A great film from the first to the last, and a personal triumph for Ari Folman. This is something that you should see.  Folman trusts his viewers enough to let us see Sabra and Shatila through his eyes and in the final scenes shocks us with the truth.