A lonely misfit and an eccentric older woman change each other’s lives in Adam Elliot’s latest clayography film Memoir of a Snail.
By Ara Jansen
Inspired by people he knows and people he’s seen, Adam Elliot delivers Memoir of a Snail, a poignant, heartfelt and hilarious chronicle of the life of an outsider finding her confidence and silver linings among the clutter of everyday life.
This is the second clayography film by the Academy Award-winning animation auteur and the follow-up to the acclaimed Mary and Max.
Meet Grace Pudel, a lonely misfit with an affinity for collecting ornamental snails and an intense love for books who is retelling her life story to a humble garden snail named Sylvia.
At a young age, Grace was separated from her fire-breathing twin brother Gilbert and spirals into anxiety and angst. Despite a continued series of hardships, inspiration and hope emerge when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman named Pinky, who is full of grit and a lust for life.
“The protagonists in all my films are outsiders and my themes and narratives explore difference,” says the Melbourne-based filmmaker. “I love telling stories that are infused with humour and pathos, reflections of our own everyday lives that celebrate the moments of joy with the darkness that comes with life’s challenges. For over 30 years my objective has been simple: make my audiences laugh … and make them cry.”
Once again, the movie is voiced by some of the world’s leading actors in Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Eric Bana, Dominique Pinon and Jacki Weaver.
Shot in the traditional and time-consuming artform of stop-motion animation, every single prop, set and character is a unique handmade tangible object made by a team of artists who spent almost a year making the 7,000 objects needed to tell Grace’s tale.
Hundreds of arms, eyeballs and mouths were handcrafted and then brought to life by stop-motion animators who spent thousands of hours in the dark moving each character a frame at a time. There is not a single frame of CGI and over a 33-week shoot. The cinematographer and camera team lit more than 200 sets and assisted the animators in capturing the 135,000 photographs needed to create the film.
Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin composed the score, which was brought to life by the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Cantillation choir, alongside soprano Jane Sheldon who sang Grace’s haunting theme.
Like previous adult works, the film is based on Adam’s family and friends and explores challenging subject matter that is often dark but tempered with moments of hilarity and warmth.
“I love adding quirks and idiosyncrasies to my characters’ psyches and try and give them incongruities and dimension; make them as empathetic, universal and real as possible. My stories are reflections of everyday life, biographies of people we can relate to, friends, eccentric relatives and the colourful people we encounter in the street.
“I try to get a balance between humour and pathos, light and shade, comedy and tragedy. I invented a word to describe my films – clayographies – a portmanteau term combining clay and biographies.”
As an auteur, Adam must wear many hats. One of his favourite roles is production designer. During COVID lockdown in Melbourne, Adam spent his confinement prepping for the film. Over five months he hand-drew all 1600 storyboard panels on pieces of paper then moved on to drawing the 200 characters, 200 sets and the thousands of props that would be handmade. He wanted to keep the materials and aesthetic simple and use four basic materials – clay, wire, paper and paint.
“Too much stop-motion has become slick and reliant on 3D printers. I wanted to celebrate the clay, its lumps, bumps and imperfections. I was born with a hereditary shake which I have incorporated into my aesthetic. We had signs throughout the studio that read Chunky Wonky. Every asset had to look flawed as if made in a hurry or by someone who was drunk.
“My characters’ psyches are imperfect, so I wanted their appearance to match my drawings which are loose, gestural and naive. I have a holistic approach to my work and strive for originality. Art imitates life and vice versa. For me they are inseparable and both art and filmmaking have become my yoga.”
Memoir of a Snail is in cinemas October 17.