Mary and Max

Recently I watched a movie called "Mary and Max", and I wanted to blog about it because I really enjoyed it. Judging by the poster I thought it was a claymation children's movie. I was wrong.

I'd like to give a summary of the plot in my own words, but Wikipedia does a pretty good job of it so I'm just going to copy and paste what it says, and add in some details in square parentheses:

"It is 1976, and 8-year-old Mary Daisy Dinkle is a lonely little girl living in Mount Waverley, Australia. Her relatively poor family cannot afford to buy her toys or nice clothing, and she is teased by children at her school due to an unfortunate birthmark on her forehead. Her father is distant and her alcoholic, kleptomaniac mother provides no support. The closest thing Mary has to a friend is the man for whom she collects mail, Len Hislop, a Greek-Australian World War II veteran who lost his legs in combat and has developed agoraphobia.

One day, by pure chance, she decides to write a letter to a man living in New York City: Max Jerry Horowitz [she accompanies her mother to the post office and while her mother is stealing envelopes, she rips out Max's address from a New York City phone book]. Max turns out to be a morbidly obese 44-year-old whose various mental problems (including anxiety attacks and overeating) have left him unable to form close bonds with other people. Max decides to write back to Mary, and the two become friends. Over time, Mary's increasingly sensitive questions about the adult world give Max progressively worse anxiety attacks, and he is ultimately institutionalised. During his time there, Max is diagnosed with depression and Asperger's syndrome. Now aware of why he has difficulty relating to other people, Max finds a new lease on life and resumes his correspondence with Mary.

The two remain friends for the next two decades, keeping one another updated on various events in their lives [including Mary's parents' separate and untimely deaths]. Mary, inspired by her friendship with Max, becomes a psychologist and marries her childhood crush, an effeminate young man named Damien Popodopoulos, who enjoys sewing but fears Mary's sexual advances. Max wins the New York lottery, using his winnings to buy a (literal) lifetime's supply of chocolate and then giving the rest away to his elderly neighbour, who wastes most of it before dying and leaving the remainder to a cat shelter only to have the owner of the shelter take it all for himself.

After earning her degree, Mary writes a psychological book detailing her communication with Max, in an attempt to dissect Asperger's syndrome. Max is infuriated, having told Mary that he has come to terms with his illness and sees it as an integral part of his personality, not something that needs to be diagnosed and cured. Max ends his communication with Mary, sending her the "M" key from his typewriter. When Mary receives the key in the mail, she is heartbroken and has the entire run of the book pulped, ruining her career. Jobless and friendless, Mary discovers that while she has been focused on her book, her husband has left her for his own penpal, a gay sheep farmer from New Zealand. Mary sinks into chronic depression and alcoholism; although Max decides to forgive Mary and sends her a present in an attempt to reconcile, Mary becomes a shut-in, leaving the box on her porch for several days. Ultimately, Mary decides to hang herself, unaware that she is pregnant.

Just as Mary is about to kill herself, Len knocks on her door, having conquered his agoraphobia to alert her of the package on her porch. Opening it, Mary finds Max's reconciliation gift, along with an accompanying letter detailing the reasons why he forgives her, how much their friendship means to him, and his hope that one day their lives will intersect and they will meet in person. It is enough to jar Mary from her depression, and she decides to start her life over again.

One year later, Mary travels to America with her infant son to finally visit Max. Entering his apartment, Mary discovers the now elderly Max, sitting on his couch, gazing upward, having passed away peacefully earlier that morning. SEeing this, Mary returns the removed "M" key to Max's typewriter and sits down next to him with her son. Looking around the apartment, Mary discovers that Max has organised the entire ceiling into a detailed scrapbook of his friendship with Mary, composed of all of her letters from over the years, which is what he was looking at when he died. Seeing how much Max valued their friendship and how happy it made him, Mary is moved to tears of joy as the film closes."

This movie was awesome. I didn't expect it to deal with such serious themes (broken home, loneliness, death, failed marriage, substance abuse, depression, suicide), but once I realised it was a movie for grown-ups, I quickly appreciated its quirky charm and unique story. The friendship between Mary and Max, two completely different individuals who have nothing in common apart from the fact that they are both social pariahs, is unorthodox yet beautiful. They find comfort and support in each other, and grow to genuinely love and care for one another. One particular scene of the film stood out for me. When Mary is still a young girl, Max tells her in one of his letters that he cannot cry. In response, Mary peels an onion, collects her tears in a jar and sends it to Max. Also, the whole movie is colourless: Mary's world is sepia, and Max's world is grey. While this doesn't change, it's clear that the characters' friendship brings colour to both their lives.

While the story was theatrical, it was moving and unusual, which I really liked. It drove home the truism that humans are made for relationships; Mary and Max become more human through their friendship. And the film conveyed the message of hope in its own wonderfully weird way. Things might look bleak and there may seem to be no way out of the deep pit you somehow got into, but you'll survive, with a little help from your loved ones.

If you're keen to watch something quaint and special, check out "Mary and Max".

Have a great day.

G.

Never let me go

So on the plane back from LA to Auckland I watched "Never Let Me Go". It's a film based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro (for all you law kids who have done Ethics, that guy who wrote "The Remains of the Day", the story about a butler who was so consumed by his role as the butler that he couldn't bring himself to tell his lady butler friend that he loved her as that would be unprofessional). Anyway, I enjoyed the film, and it made me think about some stuff.

The film is about three people named Kathy (Carey Mulligan whom I don't really know much about but liked her performance), Tommy (Andrew Garfield - he's so pretty) and Ruth (Keira Knightley with her unfortunate mandible situation). As kids, the trio grew up in Hailsham, a seemingly ordinary English boarding school. The children are taught in classes, they're made to exercise, fed well and made to create art for the headmistress' gallery. But as is revealed to the children by a young new teacher, they are all destined for the same fate: they are to grow up and donate organs to sick people who need them. None of the children are likely to survive beyond their mid-twenties, as most donors "complete" after their third or fourth donation. Some may grow up to be carers of donors, which would prolong their lives for a few years, before they are inevitably made to become donors themselves and complete after a few donations. The kids aren't shocked by this news, and all accept their destiny. It turns out that the kids don't have biological parents; they have been modelled on exiting persons and created in a lab. Nothing is kept a secret, everything's out in the open and everyone just lives with the fact that this is going on.

At Hailsham, young Kathy develops feelings for young Tommy, but young Ruth gets in the way and steals him from her (passive-aggressively). They all remain friends, and when they turn 18 they move out of Hailsham and into the Cottages, where they are designated to live until they begin donating their organs. Tommy and Ruth are still a couple, and Kathy is the awkward third wheel. But you can tell that Tommy and Kathy get along really well and they have a lot more genuine affection for each other than Tommy and Ruth. They hear about the possibility of donor couples who are in love to defer donations for a few years so that they can spend some time together, but brush it off as rumours. As time goes on, Kathy becomes a carer, and Tommy and Ruth split up before they start donating their organs. They all lose touch.

Years pass by and Tommy and Ruth have completed a couple of donations. Kathy serendipitously finds out Ruth's whereabouts, and reconnects with her. The girls also track down Tommy and the three of them become reunited. They take a trip together to the coast, and Ruth apologises for having gotten between Tommy and Kathy all those years ago. She admits to having been jealous and insecure when she saw the two of them getting along so well as kids in Hailsham. To make it up to them, she gives them the information of the person to speak to about deferring donations as a couple in love. After their trip, Ruth donates for the last time and dies. Kathy and Tommy visit the woman, but it turns out that the deferrals were indeed just a rumour, and there is no way to postpone donations once a donor has begun to donate. Kathy watches Tommy on the operating table, about to donate for the last time. The film ends with Kathy reflecting on her existence and on Tommy.

So yeah, a pretty bleak story. But I thought it had some interesting themes and messages. The first was the idea of "duty before self", similar to the butler story. These characters ultimately didn't question the purpose of their lives; they accepted their role as donors without resistance. They got frustrated from time to time and tried to get around donating for a little bit, but they didn't really do anything to change their fate. Perhaps it was because they didn't know any better? Maybe they thought it was impossible for them to change the system? That their calling in life as donors was a noble thing? I thought it was sad how the characters failed to recognise that they were entitled to normal lives as well, just like the people they were donating their organs to, even though they had been created for that purpose and that purpose alone. They were still human in every sense of the word. I reckon if I had been Kathy, I would've tried to fight my very foreseeable future. I would've tried to run away or something. Maybe I'm not noble enough.

On a related point, the notion of "self-worth and identity" spoke to me. At one point in the film, Ruth thinks she has found her "original" (the person that the donors are modelled on) but after realising that this is not the case, she gets really angry and bitter, saying that they're all modelled on human trash like junkies and prostitutes. In another scene, Kathy looks through a porn magazine to try and spot her original. These characters didn't really know who they were, or what they were truly worth as individuals. They didn't realise they had souls of their own, regardless of the fact that they were created in a lab to function as donors. And I guess a relevant thematic question to the ideas of self-worth and identity is, "What does it mean to be human?"

Another concept that the film addresses is, "What does a significant life look like?" What does it mean to lead a meaningful life? Living to die for the wellbeing and happiness of others probably fits the bill. But if you have no real choice in the matter, is it still significant and meaningful? Or is it just cruel? Who are we to say that one life can be discounted for the sake of a few others?

Finally, "death" (more specifically, impending death) was also another key theme of the film. To me, the fate of the three main characters was shocking because they are all doomed to die so young. I mean, we all know that we're all going to die someday, but for most of us that thought isn't really immediate. It's a far-off, "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it" sort of thing. But for these characters, death was always a very near and real thing, despite their youth. This aspect of the film reminded me of Ecclesiastes 12:1, which says, "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, 'I find no pleasure in them.'" The movie made me think about the importance of keeping our ultimate end in mind and living faithfully, each and every day. Because if you wait until you're old and about to die, it's too late.

I did have one issue with the story though. Tommy didn't exactly reject Ruth's advances, and they did stay together for years. If he really liked Kathy he should've either never gone out with Ruth at all, or ended things sooner. I thought it was unfair how Ruth blamed herself wholly for keeping Tommy and Kathy apart.

Overall, I thought the film was pretty good. The music and cinematography were really beautiful. I'm going to read the book soon, looking forward to it.

G.

Trials of the century and 4 little girls

At UVA Law School I'm taking a seminar class called "Trials of the Century" with Professor Anne Coughlin. It's probably my favourite paper out of the four that I'm taking here. We read and watch law journal articles, novels, films and documentaries about or based on great criminal trials of the past. And we meet once a week to talk about these trials: about the prevailing narratives of each trial; the larger historical, socio-political and anthropological issues involved in each trial; and the various purposes that criminal trials serve. The connecting thread of our discussions is the question, "What makes a trial a trial of the century?" The conversations are intellectually stimulating, engaging and often humorous. The two hours of class fly by very quickly each week. 

The trials have all been very different from each other. The most interesting trials in my recollection were the Lizzie Borden trial (where a seemingly benign New England spinster killed her father and stepmother by beating them viciously with an axe), the John Scopes trial (where a high school science teacher was prosecuted in Tennessee for teaching the theory of evolution to his students in violation of a state statute prohibiting it), the Leopold and Loeb trial (where two intelligent and wealthy young Chicago college students killed a 14-year-old boy for no real reason other than sport and experimentation) and the Scottsboro Boys trial (where a group of nine African-American men were wrongly accused of and incarcerated for raping two white women on a freight train in Alabama). Each of these trials received huge media attention at the time, and are indelibly etched into America's legal memory.

Yesterday I watched a Spike Lee documentary called "4 Little Girls" for next week's class. It's a film about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that was carried out by Ku Klux Klan members in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The church had been a rallying point for Civil Rights Movement activities, and the bigots of Alabama wanted to punish the African-Americans for their political activism, as well as to intimidate them into giving up in the fight for their rights. Four little girls - Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley - were killed in the bombing. The documentary interviewed family members of the girls who talked about each child and her short life, gave an overview of segregated life in 1960s Alabama (for instance, separate white and coloured public facilities), traced the development of the Civil Rights movement in Alabama in 1963 and the backlash it received (the firehosing of peaceful protesters in the streets and imprisonment of children were particularly despicable), looked at the bombing itself, and briefly covered the trial of one of the Klansmen (Robert Chambliss) responsible for it. He was gross man, he was all proud of himself for being a part of the bombing, sneering like a devil. Sick.

It was a heart-wrenching film. The interviews with the mothers of the girls were the most gripping part. I could see the lingering grief in their shining eyes, 30 years on from the tragic event. And the girls' siblings and childhood friends testified to how kind, caring and lovable they had all been. Each of the girls had been so precious, and if they were alive today they would no doubt be valuable members of their community. The documentary showed pictures of each girl, smiling, eyes twinkling, innocent and harmless. And to think that such beautiful children were maliciously and arbitrarily murdered, all because of a completely twisted view of racial equality, because of an absolutely senseless hatred based on skin colour. I couldn't stop crying as I watched it.

Racism is an undeniable and significant part of this country's history. How could one group of people persecute another group of people in such terrible ways, just because they're of a different race? In the documentary, Denise McNair's father told a story of a family outing during Christmas, where he couldn't buy Denise a sandwich from a store because it was for white people only. She was confused, and later that night when he explained to her the concept of segregation, she remained baffled. She just couldn't understand why people were treated badly simply because of the colour of their skin. It really is absurd. Sadly, I've realised that race remains a key divisive factor in America today, despite the huge progress it has made over the last century. Racial disparities are evident in schools, in the workplace and in the legal system.

And we try to solve many of society's problems, like racism, through the law. Another Klansman (Bobby Frank Cherry) responsible for the bombing was prosecuted more than 30 years after the bombing. While the law gives a significant degree of vindication to the victims of such crimes, I don't know whether the law is necessarily the right forum to tackle issues that are far larger than the courtroom. Does the conviction of a murderer provide real closure to the victim's loved ones? Can legal rules that prohibit discrimination stop people from distrusting and hating each other? No, I don't think so. If not trials, then what can society do? It has to do something in response to happenings like the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. I don't know. Maybe a trial is a necessary but insufficient part of the resolution process. But I still don't know what society could do to fill the gaps. 

I've learnt a lot about history, American culture and the nature of a trial from this course. But most of all, I've had the opportunity to think a lot about humanity. People can be such strange and inexplicable creatures. We can become caught up in incredible ideas that cause us to act destructively, inhumanely, nonsensically. Completely weird notions that cause us to hate and hurt one another in ways that future generations won't be able to comprehend. Entire societies can become engulfed in beliefs and captured by ridiculous fears and consequently make life hellish for its minority members. We can be so evil sometimes. It makes my heart feel so bad. We're so in need of God that it's not even funny. 

While there's much to be said about our past and the traditions we hold dear to our hearts, there are some parts of our history that have to be buried deep into the ground and never unearthed. The only thing we should do with the blemishes of the past is to keep them in our collective conscience so that we don't repeat them, ever. Hopefully we as people will continue onwards and upwards in terms of social progress, learning from what has been and piloting prudently towards where we're headed. 

Watch "4 Little Girls" if you get the chance. It's engaging, educational and moving. 

G.