Max becomes friends with an Australian girl in charming claymation film
MARY AND MAX (Adam Elliot, 2009)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Saturday, January 23, 9:00
Sunday, January 24, 8:45
212-875-5601
www.maryandmax.com
www.filmlinc.com
Winner of numerous awards at film festivals all over the world, Adam Elliot’s stop-motion animated MARY AND MAX is the touching, unforgettable tale of two loners who become pen pals, sharing the details of their hopes and dreams over decades. Mary (voiced by Bethany Whitmore as a young girl and Toni Collette when she gets older) is an oddball child living in a small town in Australia. Seeking a friend, she sends a letter to a random person she finds in a phone book. Max (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a childlike middle-aged man suffering from Asperger’s Disorder in New York City. Through the years, their long-distance relationship goes through emotional ups and downs, building to a surprising ending that still has us scratching our heads. Elliot, who won an Oscar for his short film HARVIE KRUMPET in 2003, wrote, directed, and designed the sets and characters for MARY AND MAX, inspired by the photography of Diane Arbus. He brings Mary and Max to life in charming ways, adding little details and flourishes that will endear you to them even though they both are very, very strange. The film, wonderfully narrated by Barry “Dame Edna” Humphries, required more than 130,000 individual frames and 212 puppets and took 57 weeks to shoot; the result is simply charming. MARY AND MAX is being shown this weekend at Lincoln Center as part of the New York Jewish Film Festival; executive producer Paul Hardart will be in attendance at the January 23 screening. (The film is also part of the Reel Abilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival running January 28 – February 2, presented by the JCC in Manhattan.)
Louis Malle’s engaging semiautobiographical coming-of-age drama is about the ultimate mama’s boy. Set in Dijon in 1954 during the French Indochine War, MURMUR OF THE HEART follows fifteen-year-old Laurent Chevalier (Benoît Ferreux) as he investigates his burgeoning sexuality while his Italian mother, Clara (Lea Massari), struggles with her own, cheating on her French gynecologist husband (Daniel Gélin) with a mystery man and flirting madly with just about everyone else. Laurent, who has a heart murmur that requires special treatment, fights with his two older brothers (Fabien Ferreux and Marc Winocourt), has an uncomfortable session with a priest (Michael Lonsdale), tries to make a go of it with a prostitute (Gila von Weitershausen), and experiments with some older local girls, but somehow he always ends up in the loving arms of his very sexy mother. Nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar and the Palme d’Or at Cannes, MURMUR OF THE HEART is a beautiful look at growing up, with a rousing jazz soundtrack featuring music by Charlie Parker, Sidney Bechet, Dizzy Gillespie, and other cool cats. The film is being screened three times as part of Lincoln Center’s Louis Malle Sampler (January 1-7), a six-pack that also includes THE FIRE WITHIN, THE LOVERS, MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, PHANTOM INDIA, and VANYA ON 42nd St.; as an added bonus, Wallace Shawn will participate in a Q&A following the 6:15 screening of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE on January 6.