Memoir of a Snail (2024): Annecy Film Review

Adam Elliot (Mary and Max) has done it again. The Australian stop-motion animation auteur delivers a prolific (sometimes of epic proportions), grotesque story of puppets in suffering -which sometimes looks discordant, but overall highly charged and well-placed.

(Update 15/6: The film won the Annecy Festival Cristal for a best animation feature)

Armed with the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's motto that "life can only be understood backward, but we have to live it forwards", 'Memoir of A Snail' unfolds in the Australian '70s to tell the story of the misfit Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook). Grace is born, along with her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), in a place in which she immediately has to face her mother's death. Her erstwhile juggler (now drunken and paraplegic) father (Dominique Pinon) is counting on luck to escape his poor life -in the meantime, is taken care of by his children.

It won't be long till, in a purely avalanche-of-disasters fashion, both kids will be on their own and be taken care of by foster families (of very different demeanors each). This is the point when Grace, losing her grasp in the real world, tries to find solace in the closeted snail world -and becomes a hoarder of snail memorabilia.

7000 related objects play their narrative part in the magnificently set production design (supervised by Adam Elliot himself); the film won't simply present the various memorabilia, it will showcase them with carefully designed shots, to tell us their own story (the one that compliments Grace's story). A marvel of design, these objects (in a 33-week shoot) are silent reminders of where your soul goes when your body cannot take any more hardships.

Yet 'Memoirs of A Snail' is  not a heavy-ladden film, since Elliot instills in every corner a sardonic, morbid sense of humor (the one that you'd expect from the creator of 'Mary and Max' and the Oscar-winning 'Harvey Crumpet'). Almost all jokes and lines land well on the ground, even though Grace's memoir sometimes feels too heavy narratively; all those too different characters, indispensable as they are, sometimes deprive the film of its epicenter on Grace (and Gilbert). Gilbert has the better, straightforward, storyline of disasters on his behalf, whose tension and directorial mastering would have put all films about 'conversion therapy' to shame. At the same time, the lovable eccentric Pinky (Jackie Weaver) as Grace's best friend provides the sole sunshine of unpredictable hope in this still very earthly lit film. Elliot seems to like Jean-Pierre Jeunet films, but his cinematography -by Gerald Thompson- is more grounded in reality than any JPJ hero.

Watch the 'Memoir of a Snail' trailer:

Sarah Snook, acting as a disaster-ridden Amelie, has a heavy work in a film that needs her narration almost in every frame; she does this unpretentiously well and with the spike of mild eccentricity that almost all Adam Elliot characters have. While Kodi Smit-McPhee (of the 'Power of the Dog' fame) complements her as the sad and lonely hero who is there to protect her -but needs more protection himself.

Composer Elena Kats-Cherni brings a soberness to the film that compliments the numerous ups and downs (mostly downs) of the emotional rollercoaster that Elliot presents. Yet the film is an essential humanistic affair. Not only because, as its end title states, it was made by humans (no CGI shots, and no AI), but it also puts Grace's sole creative purpose in the hands of being a stop-motion animator. This celebration of stop-motion (with corresponding scenes and a very relatable festival Q&A incident) makes Grace's character more than the sum of its miserable disaster (a creepy husband, dead parents, and more disasters to come); it gives her voice to go on -even though the film ending seems forced here (but welcome).

'Memoir of a Snail' is darkly entertaining, and impeccably crafted in its animating details piece. Its narrative wants to prove that more is more (based on a real character's mishaps, to be sure), which immediately invites the comparison between the story's more intricate handling of relationships against the more funnily morbid parts. Adam Elliot fans will have many things to entertain them here, and newcomers will get a sweeping version of what it means to let life define you -instead of you defining life. 'Memoirs of a Snail' adds another trademarked social misfit character to Adam Elliot's pantheon, and still wants to make you live your life forward (except for keeping on a snail hat, perhaps). 

Vassilis Kroustallis

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