Memoir of a Snail
For this year’s first TIFF Secret Movie Club screening, we saw this Australian stop-motion animated film, about the tough life of a young woman who loses her family to various tragedies. Her emotional refuge is collecting—and hoarding—snails and snail-related paraphernalia; anything that evokes the spiral shape of a snail shell is irresistible to her. Like Uzumaki, this manifests as dense repeated visual patterns that I’m sure would reward repeat viewings. The jerky motion of claymation is inherently “cute,” but the colour palette of mostly browns and greys, as well the perpetually droopy-eyed expression of the protagonist Grace, serve to offset the quirkiness with a dour mood.
One of last year’s Secret Movie Club selections, The Iron Claw, depicted so much tragedy and loss that were it not based on a true story, I would think that the writers were overdoing it, sacrificing believability in order to tug at viewers’ heartstrings. Memoir of a Snail, because of its biopic-like structure, and of course, its title, had me believing that it also was a true story, despite its fantastical and whimsical visuals. I kept thinking, Wow, how did this person endure so much pain and trauma?, as if it were a real person.
It’s only in hindsight that I realize that it must be mostly fiction. Unfortunately, this leaves me feeling deceived. In my opinion, by putting its main character through the ringer, only to give her a twist happy ending, the film strays into emotionally manipulative territory. In the Q&A session afterwards, writer/director Adam Elliot says that he wants to achieve two things with his films: make the audience laugh, and make the audience cry. I think he tries a little too hard to reach this goal.
