On February 14, Adam Elliot’s Memoir of Snail will be released in UK cinemas. The film is currently part of the Oscar race, and last summer it won the Grand Prix at the Annecy International Animation Festival (that can be called the Cannes of animation). But even without these accolades, the fact that the film was directed by Adam Elliot, a remarkable Australian filmmaker well-known among animation enthusiasts, would have been enough. His Mary and Max and Harvie Krumpethave long since secured their places in the golden collection of animated films.
Memoir Of a Snail Official Website
The most obvious comparison for Elliot is with Nick Park: both work with claymation puppets, both started with Oscar-nominated short films, both have a distinctive, recognizable style, and both meticulously build their own alternative universes filled with quirky, eccentric characters. However, unlike the whimsical world of Wallace & Gromit, Elliot’s films are far from child-friendly. The worlds he creates are harsh, bleak, and filled with all sorts of unpleasantness – bullying and domestic violence, religious fanaticism and hypocrisy, cruelty and indifference. In Elliot’s gray clay universe, his fragile, defenseless characters must confront the most unseemly aspects of life imaginable. Lonely, awkward, and often deprived of even the most basic forms of love and support, they wander helplessly through this universe, searching not for happiness – happiness is something they never dare to hope for – but simply a bearable place to exist.
Such is the case with Memoir of Snail. The film’s protagonist, Grace, seems to endure every hardship possible. She loses her mother early, suffers bullying as a child due to her cleft lip, then loses her father and becomes separated from her beloved brother. And while Elliot narrates all this with impeccable dark humor (his signature, inimitable style), there’s little to laugh about in Grace’s life – frankly, nothing at all. Her existence is one endless catastrophe, and even her surprisingly light character, that allows her to take things philosophically, barely helps.
After such a grim description, it may seem unexpected to say that Elliot’s work is full of hope and, in many ways, deserves to be called some of the most heartwarming, kind, and soul-soothing cinema. His films—including Memoir of Snail—are always about love. About the search for connection, kindred spirits, human warmth, and a tiny island of comfort. And about infinite tolerance and acceptance. Elliot’s absurd, imperfect characters, having gone through countless personal tragedies, always find light and hope in the end. And that light and hope extend to all of us, reminding us that, in Elliot’s view, we all deserve love and happiness.
