The changing power of stories

I watched a really terrific movie recently. I watch a lot of movies and frankly, there aren’t many nowadays that have the power to reach out and touch me.
Hollywood has strayed from the art of storytelling to the fascination with flash, technology and puerile, sometimes senseless action and violence.
That’s okay for those keen on escapism but I’ve always loved storytelling’s power to lift me, transport me, elevate me and take me somewhere I have never been.
So to find a film that got to me emotionally was wonderful. I sat back and let if flow over me. I allowed the story to inhabit me and just as I came to inhabit it. Time became unimportant and all that existed was the story come to life on the screen. It wasn’t a big name, big star extravaganza nor was it a theatrical stunner. Instead it was animation. Claymation, I believe they call it when the characters are clay and made to move on the screen like real people.
It’s called Mary and Max and it’s about two people; one a sad, lonely girl in Australia and a sad, lonely old man from New York City.
Both their worlds are glum and woeful and they both suffer the weight of isolation and a pitiable lack of friends.
Max is Jewish and Mary is a non-descript white Australian but they share a common yearning for more; more adventure, more experience, more connection to things and people.
But neither of them fit into the worlds they inhabit.
Mary is young, plain and deeply withdrawn. She’s awkward with folks and spends all of her time in her room watching television.
Max suffers from Asberger Syndrome and because of that he can’t decipher the world or the people around him. He too, spends all his time with his television and a single gold fish for company. When fate allows them to become pen pals everything changes and they discover the magic of friendship.
In their letters they define themselves to each other. They’re able, through the relative safety of distance and displacement, to let their interior worlds out and to declare and define their personhood in ways their lowly lives will not allow. The letters are heartfelt, innocent and filled with insights into how lonely people interpret the world and the people around them. They become attached to each other and the arrival of new letters and small gifts become shining lights in their glum worlds.
Then, just like everyone else, life befalls them. Things happen, there are tragedies and changes and misunderstandings followed by long periods when they do not write. But they miss each other. They crave the simple joy that comes with communicating with another human being.
Like any real world friendship they have to learn to negotiate through life. Mary finds love then loses it, Max falls ill and they are both incapable of telling the other how that feels or believing that they will be understood or that friendship itself can be the bridge to a necessary healing connection.
Emotionally, it’s so much like the real world that it’s easy to forget you’re watching a movie or that the characters are clay puppets.
That’s because Mary and Max is deeply funny. That’s because the producers and the writers allow their foibles and idiosyncrasies to shine through and we laugh because we see ourselves in them. We laugh because we recognize humanity and it’s only a great story that creates that state or relationship between the make believe and the human.
It’s also sensationally sad but in the end as uplifting a movie as I’ve seen.
Sure, the technology that allows a clay puppet to act is amazing but it’s the real emotion they display that makes watching it a joy.
See, we need real stories now. At least, I know that I do. We need to see and hear and read stories that allow us to see ourselves in them – to imagine how it would be, how we would be in the same situation. We need stories that open doorways to perception and allow us a peek at our real natures, the sides of ourselves we keep tucked and hidden from the view of those we love and those we can sometimes pretend to really know. That’s the particular magic of good movie making and good storytelling – to open our imaginations so that we can see ourselves as we really are.
Mary and Max is awesome. Watch it if you care about stories that reach out and touch you.
Stories that have the power to claim part of your soul and change it, alter it make it more because that, in the end, is what storytelling is all about – bringing us into them and making us more.