'Welcome to Marwen': Finding courage through art

“Welcome to Marwen” is a tale about a brutal assault victim trying to cope with the trauma through his art. Mark Hogancamp (Steve Carell) uses his art to find courage and meaning, and he may have a thing or two teach his friends too.

The trailer of the film [see below] shows Mark being assaulted by a few NAZI thugs outside a bar. The attack is so vicious that he has to be hospitalised. He was once an artist, but now he can barely write his own name.

Mark finds a way to tell his story to the world through his action figures. He has dolls made of himself and the people he knows in his town. He has built a whole toy town named Marwen with a lot of attention to detail.

The town is complete with a few Nazi villains, Mark as a US soldier, and the women in the town. The women of Marwen protect Mark from the villains.

The pictures Mark takes of the stories in the town of Marwen are his way of telling stories, and he finds this process to be therapeutic. Still, he has moments like waking up in the middle of the night from nightmares that seem so real that he screams out.

While Mark tries to heal his mental wounds and find meaning through his work, the wheels of justice turn slowly in the real world. In court, he has to face the Nazi men who attacked him. He has embraced the pain of learning to do things again, like learning to walk. Now, he has to find the courage to face the men who put him in the hospital.

The action figures come to his rescue once again. He has to stand up in court, tell his story, and hope that the men who did this to him will pay!