There is only one brief shot in Memory of a snail showing a sleeping koala lounging in a tree fork, which illustrates the incredible attention paid to even the most casually observed details in this proudly analog assemblage of thousands of hand-crafted objects. It also serves to show the very specific Australian character of Adam Elliot’s second feature, a young adult chronicle of an alien existence that would feel intimately personal even without the meta aspect of a main character who aspires to become an animator in stop-motion.
With its morbid, often brash and salty sense of humor – we’re barely there before we learn that a homeless alcoholic voiced by Eric Bana is actually a former magistrate defrocked for masturbating in court – and his refusal to shrink from the darkness of death. , depression, cruelty, loneliness and misshapen naked bodies, it is unlikely to be parent-approved entertainment for young children.
Memory of a snail
The essential
A real curiosity.
Place: Annecy Festival (Competition)
Cast: Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver, Eric Bana, Magda Szubanski, Dominique Pinon, Tony Armstrong, Paul Capsis, Bernie Clifford, Davey Thompson, Charlotte Belsey, Mason Litsos, Nick Cave
Director-screenwriter:Adam Elliot
1 hour 34 minutes
Connoisseurs of unconventional animation and decidedly strange storytelling should eat it up, though. Despite its claymation bona fides, the film owes less to Nick Park than to Jeunet and Caro, in particular deli And Ameliea kinship apparently recognized in the vocal casting of Dominique Pinon in a small role.
Elliot, who calls his work Clayographieswon an Oscar in 2004 for his short film Harvey Krumpet and moved to features five years later with Mary and Maxanother melancholy study of a misfit girl who finds respite from her loneliness in her bond with a much older eccentric – voiced by Toni Colette and Philip Seymour Hoffman respectively.
The director’s films are not exactly easy to like, as often distancing as they are funny or warm. But in Memory of a snail, an eight-year labor of love, the quirky charms wash over you and the elaborate creation of an absurdly surreal, sometimes grotesque world is undeniably impressive. This world was partly inspired by Elliot’s experience downsizing his elderly, semi-hoarding mother’s possessions, which led to research into acquisitive drives and how often they are rooted in a trauma.
Going against the rule that a snail never retraces its steps, Elliot’s bittersweet story begins with the final breaths of Pinky (Jacki Weaver), nursed back to health by her devoted young friend Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook), who is completely confused by the old woman’s last breath: “Potatoes!
Nevertheless, Grace goes out into the garden and frees her beloved snails from their…
