Memoir of a Snail | Dir: Adam Elliot | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Famous for winning an Academy Award for the Best Animation Short Film for Harvie Crumpet, it was marvelous to hear Australian writer, director and production designer Adam Elliot talk about his latest seven year labour of love.
Completely free of Computer Generated Imagery, this marvelous stop-motion Claymation involved making around 7,000 objects and 200 sets by 30 artists, and it was then brought to life by seven animators and six months of editing.
Just as a comparison, Inside Out 2 had a budget of $200 million and Memoir of a Snail was made with a $7 million budget … and Elliot was insistent that the film include guinea pigs mating and an older woman tap-dancing naked on a table.
The bleakly humorous film which ruminates on many grown-up issues including hoarding, loss and grief is not a film for children. But, amongst all the exquisite details, it does use the power of childhood to interpret the world, survive hardships and find joy, while the audience has a bit of a chuckle.
Set in Australia in the 1970s, Grace Pudel (voiced by Sarah Snook) and her twin brother Gilbert (voiced by Kodi Smit-Mc Phee) become separated when their paraplegic, alcoholic former juggler father dies because their mother had died when they were born.
Gilbert ends up in a brutal evangelical family and has to work in their ‘Eden’ apple orchard, along with their sons as forced child labour. Being gay and attracted to the youngest son was going to incur monumental punishment and Gilbert dreams of escaping the farm and finding Grace.
Meanwhile, Grace gradually withdraws from the world because she misses Gilbert so much. She surrounds herself with snails because she identifies with them. ”Snails hibernate when they need to repair themselves.”
Years pass and it is only her friendship with the eccentric older woman Pinky (voiced by Jacki Weaver) that allows Grace to see some hope for the future, and gives her the determination to make it come true.
Lezly Herbert
