Mary and Max is an Australian film directed by Adam Elliot. Throughout the film many different themes are demonstrated. The journey of pen pals Mary and Max evolves quickly from coincidently finding each other to becoming best friends despite living on the other side of the world. As any friendship, Mary and Max go through their ups and downs which makes them stronger individuals. They share their stories and give each other advice.
The use of colour and lighting was a key feature in the pen pal film. The film was created with a lot of dark colours. It was greyscale but had the colour red on only key features to draw the audience attention to a specific place. For example the Max had a red Jewish hat. The hat describes his characterization …show more content…
Pen pals Mary and Max both suffered from mental issues. The two characters were shown most of the time being alone coping with their cases. Mary throughout the film was bullied growing up with no friends and a broken miserable family. Max on the other hand also had no friends. He was much older than Mary however suffered from post bulling experiences, social anxiety and more. In scenes where Max would be replying to Mary’s letters, Max was shown alone sometimes even in distress. Looking at the angle that shows his back made him look very venerable due to his bad body posture. In the empty room where he wrote reply letters, all the viewer can see is him sitting with bad posture, the typewriter, and a bare light bulb. The bare light bulb is a sign of neglect, emptiness and loneliness. As Max sometimes struggles to respond to Mary’s letters as he wasn’t used to having a friend he would stresses about her letters. Some of the letters triggered Max therefore he got anxiety attacks. In these scenes Max would be shown again by himself, venerable and neglected. Max would tell Mary about his experiences and was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. He found the world confusing and couldn’t cope or understand emotions. Max was a very hyper sensitive character that got concerned easily. This was show in the film by the characters placement, the gloomy dark vibes the viewer gets from the colour of the scenery
The use of colour and lighting was a key feature in the pen pal film. The film was created with a lot of dark colours. It was greyscale but had the colour red on only key features to draw the audience attention to a specific place. For example the Max had a red Jewish hat. The hat describes his characterization …show more content…
Pen pals Mary and Max both suffered from mental issues. The two characters were shown most of the time being alone coping with their cases. Mary throughout the film was bullied growing up with no friends and a broken miserable family. Max on the other hand also had no friends. He was much older than Mary however suffered from post bulling experiences, social anxiety and more. In scenes where Max would be replying to Mary’s letters, Max was shown alone sometimes even in distress. Looking at the angle that shows his back made him look very venerable due to his bad body posture. In the empty room where he wrote reply letters, all the viewer can see is him sitting with bad posture, the typewriter, and a bare light bulb. The bare light bulb is a sign of neglect, emptiness and loneliness. As Max sometimes struggles to respond to Mary’s letters as he wasn’t used to having a friend he would stresses about her letters. Some of the letters triggered Max therefore he got anxiety attacks. In these scenes Max would be shown again by himself, venerable and neglected. Max would tell Mary about his experiences and was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. He found the world confusing and couldn’t cope or understand emotions. Max was a very hyper sensitive character that got concerned easily. This was show in the film by the characters placement, the gloomy dark vibes the viewer gets from the colour of the scenery