Memoir of a Snail
Adam Elliot’s Oscar-nominated stop-motion animated tragicomedy is a work that only he could have made.
Image courtesy of Modern Films.
Adam Elliot is an artist and one who as an animator favouring stop motion has developed his own highly individual signature. As with Aardman, Elliot uses clay and his chosen format makes filmmaking a very long process since his films have to be shot frame by frame. Consequently, it is hardly surprising that in the years since 1996 he has only been able to give us five shorts and two features of which Memoir of a Snail is the second (the first was the great 2009 Mary and Max). Since Elliot writes and directs all of his films and sometimes contributes in other capacities too, it is not surprising that he should have created works that are recognisably linked stylistically. That applies to his sense of design and especially to the somewhat grotesque features that he gives to the human characters that are central to his films. Among the characteristics that frequently appear are notably large eyes while glasses worn by his creations have unusually big frames - in Memoir of a Snail this latter feature is particularly striking in the case of the elderly eccentric Pinky whose look evokes thoughts of the late designer Iris Apfel. But what makes Adam Elliot’s work feel all of a piece goes far beyond the visual look and that’s because his films express a very clear view of life, one that is sensitive to its tragedies but equally alert to its comic absurdities.
This tragicomic mix is illustrated by the fact that, despite the humour that abounds in Elliot's writing, he has made films which often focus on people who are burdened by their condition (deafness, Tourette's syndrome and Asperger’s among them). In Memoir of a Snail, again set in his own country of Australia, Elliot tells the story of twins, Grace and Gilbert Pudel, who, when their mother dies giving birth, are brought up by their father who, consequent on being injured in a street accident, becomes paraplegic and an alcoholic. When he dies too the children are taken into care but separated in the process since Gilbert is sent away to a family in Perth while Grace's foster-parents are in Canberra. Growing up these two correspond but are unable to see each other. Separated now by distance, they are also in markedly different environments. Gilbert is in the home of Ruth and Owen Appleby who as members of an extremely evangelical church group discipline him along with their own children and also use them exploitatively to work their farm. In total contrast to that, Grace is in the home of Ian and Narelle who become swingers. They subsequently neglect her so that in time her only close bond, save for an ill-advised choice of husband, is old Pinky who despite being very elderly becomes a real companion to her.
Characters in Elliot’s films can be bizarre in their eccentricities and in this instance, Grace is presented as a hoarder of snails and a lover of guinea pigs. She is the film’s main narrator (although Gilbert also contributes in this way) and in telling her own story addresses it to a favourite snail whom she has named Sylvia. But many of the oddities shown stem essentially from loneliness and, although Elliot’s screenplay often provides delightful comic detail (as when young Gilbert is reading ‘Lord of the Flies’ and Grace is beside him reading a book about snails), the film is always deeply sensitive to that underlying loneliness and to the misfortunes and cruelties of life. Even so, Elliot is also consciously looking for ways to stress positive elements. It is the happy days as well as even briefer moments of happiness in the childhood of Grace and Gilbert that are recognised and duly celebrated as being good memories. In the film's later stages, it seems fair to suggest that Pinky becomes Elliot's mouthpiece sagely supporting Grace in times of tribulation and stressing that to savour life you always need to live thinking forwards rather than constantly looking back.
As Mary and Max proved, Adam Elliot is remarkably adroit in the way he blends his idiosyncratic sense of comedy with moments that are deeply touching (if on the surface his work can sometimes seems strange, the humanity present in their underlying emotional truths is always apparent). Memoir of a Snail is a worthy successor although it does encounter certain problems of construction in its later stages. This partly stems from the rather odd decision to begin the film with Pinky’s death and then to go back to tell Grace's story chronologically. When in due course the death scene is reprised the effect is to imply that a conclusion is imminent but in fact the film has some key scenes yet to offer. It is here that there is a plot twist which feels rather contrived and which risks sentimentality while elsewhere a development in Gilbert’s story comes over rather too melodramatically (what we see is indeed horrifying but the way in which it is presented feels too consciously played up in this context). These points when taken together slightly detract from the concluding scenes of Memoir of a Snail but the film is admirably voiced by its distinguished cast headed by Sarah Snook as the adult Grace, Kodi Smit-McPhee as the adult Gilbert and Jacki Weaver as Pinky. In any case such minor misjudgments scarcely matter when the film speaks so tellingly in the voice that is unique to Adam Elliot.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Voices of Sarah Snook, Jacki Weaver, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Dominique Pinon, Magda Szubanski, Tony Armstrong, Charlotte Belsey, Mason Litsos, Eric Bana, Nick Cave, Paul Capsis, Bernie Clifford, Adam Elliot.
Dir Adam Elliot, Pro Adam Elliot and Liz Kearney, Screenplay Adam Elliot, Ph Gerald Thompson, Art Dir Bob Shea, Ed Bill Murphy, Music Elena Kats-Chernin.
Arenamedia/Screen Australia/Snails Pace Films-Modern Films.
95 mins. Australia. 2024. US Rel: 25 October 2024. UK Rel: 14 February 2025. Cert. 15.
