The Adam Elliot’s claymation Mary and Max opens with credits on a black screen with sad contemplative orchestral music. Then the screen if filled with darkness, followed by climbing upbeat hopeful music illuminating a sepia coloured ordinary Australian suburban landscape. Many typical Australian domestic icons portray this: like the Australian rules Sherin branded Football on the roof, the thongs protruding from a rubbish bin on Lamington street and a barbeque on a back lawn. The letterboxes are also reminiscent of Australian symbols like the Ned Kelly and koala that are featured on the letterboxes. There are also symbols representing suburbia like the “y” front underwear on the line and water sprinkler. These symbols and objects convey a typical ordinary Australian story.
The film is set during the 1970-80s and this decade’s mood is portrayed through the brown and bronze colour palette as well as the objects strewn in the suburban neighbourhood. The sepia also conveys the hot Australia climate. The children’s toys left out in the sun like the rollerblades and football portray that this neighbourhood is teeming with children and moment and play. The sepia also has a glow to it like a fond dream or a memory long ago.
The narrator’s calm mature male adult voice introduces Mary Daisy Dinkle as a young innocent outsider. She is juxtaposed to her surroundings of moment and life to shot of her statically standing at her window, only an observer, not a participator. Eliot gives Mary a “dorky” look; by her large rectangle glasses that are too big for her face and are also slightly turned upward, giving her a kind and sympathising look. She is chubby and short with a pear shaped head and freckles exemplifying her innocence.
Mary watches her favourite cartoon, The Noblets, which connects her character to Max Jerry Horovitz, an obese 40-year-old man who is also marginalised.
Max is an old Jewish man who is immensely obese. His face