Having heard our Sundance welcome from the oracle that is Robert Redford, Defamer advanced to actual movies late Thursday with the opening-night premiere of the sweet, slightly sick claymation freak show Mary and Max.

Redford put in another cameo at the Eccles Theater, where curious distributors and journalists squeezed thigh-to-thigh with the locals and civic leaders who tolerate them, until 1,270 seats bent with anticipation a little after 6 p.m. The last of those seats to fill belonged to Adam Elliott, the Oscar-winning filmmaker who joined his producer onstage to introduce their film — the first feature-length animation and first Australian film ever to open the Sundance Film Festival.

Facts of which Elliott was proud, but not as much as actually finishing Mary and Max. "After winning the Oscar for Harvie Krumpet, somebody said to me, 'It's all downhill from here,' " Elliott said. "I managed to come up with an idea, but I really underestimated how difficult it was going to be to make this film." He explained that he and his six animators shot by traditional, stop-motion claymation standards, yielding barely 30 seconds of film per day between them over the 57-week shoot. Elliott compared the process to being stabbed to death during sex.

"Every single prop, set and character, you can hold in your hand," he continued. "There was a temptation to do CGI rain, but the rain is fishing line. The fire is red cellophane. For all the water in the film we used over 50 tubes of sexual lubricant."

Oh. The revelation is a tough one to shake while viewing, particularly when studying the prodigious tears of the 8-year-old Australian title character, Mary Daisy Dinkle, and the flopsweat of her anxiety-prone, 44-year-old New York penpal Max Jerry Horowitz. Worse yet, it's symptomatic of the story's fealty to technique; voiced by Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the correspondents bond over twee affectations (Mary's pet rooster, the obese Max's taste for "chocolate hot dogs") that overextend themselves visually in the flimsy friendship parable that contains them. Barry Humphries' voiceover narration has an overbearing, bedtime story quality, and Elliott's scatological obsessions (no fewer than four plot points rely on the texture, color or mere presence of shit) make Charlie Kaufman's look scientific in comparison.

Another subplot involves Max's battle with Asperger's syndrome, which inspires Mary to years of study and the eventual publication of a definitive book on the illness's treatment. You're not alone if Max's outrage at his exploitation comes to rival your own; it's a clumsy, convenient bit of crusading on Elliott's part that cheapens both characters. Still, their relationship — based on Elliot's 20-year correspondence with his own New York penpal — is often touching, all mutual dreams and droll, awkward candor.

M&M sales chances are fair to good despite mixed reviews already pouring out; it's an automatic Animation Oscar contender for anyone willing to take on Pixar's Up later this year. And why shouldn't they? Fifty containers of lube go a long way.