“I really do love shaking the audience up,” laughs Memoir of a Snail director Adam Elliot. The animation genius behind short films like the Oscar winning Harvie Krumpet and the acclaimed feature Mary and Max is up to his regular tricks with Memoir of a Snail. The film features Elliot’s signature blend of whimsy and dark humour in a handcrafted fable. His latest stop-motion/Claymation work tells the story of Grace (Sarah Snook) who recounts the tale of her sad and troubled life to a snail. It’s a melancholy affair that unfolds with Elliot’s unique way of confronting life with a light touch.
One can’t help but laugh as Grace rambles on about her dead mother, alcoholic father, lost gay brother (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and his subsequent abduction into foster care by a zealously religious family, and her idiosyncratic best friend Pinky (Jacki Weaver). The latter proves a source of fascination for Grace, as she matches her habit for hoarding all sorts of souvenirs of a life lived: memories, knick-knacks, and all sorts of junk with stories to tell, including her tale of seducing John Denver in an airplane or the time her lost her finger in a bar, which led to her nickname, Pinky.
Grace, whose love for snails is evident in the antenna-adorned toque she sports throughout the film, finds an appropriate metaphor in their shells for the weight she carries on her back. Besides being a literal hoarder, she’s a figurative one who amasses a lifetime of burdens without release. But she’s buoyed by the fact that snails can’t move backwards, only forwards.
“Grief is weird, death can be funny, pain can lead to laughs, and weirdos can find true companionship and acceptance from both themselves and others,” says Rachel West in That Shelf’s review of Memoir of a Snail. “Elliot’s vision for his heroine offers hopefulness in the face of what seems to be a never-ending string of tragedies.”
“It’s all about the quirks, the idiosyncrasies, and the poignant moments as much as the comedic moments,” adds Elliot. “It sounds weird, but I want to exhaust the audience. I want to push every emotional button I possibly can.” Memoir of a Snail will make audiences laugh, cry, widen their eyes with horror, and laugh again.
That Shelf spoke with Elliot via Zoom ahead of the theatrical release of Memoir of a Snail. We discussed his approach to animation, telling “adult” stories, and, unfortunately, the U.S. election that happened the night before.
That Shelf: When you were growing up and watching movies as a kid, was there an animated film that gave you the bug and inspired your creative direction?
Adam Elliot: I watched a lot of live action. I certainly didn’t have any aspirations to be an animator. I was always drawing, and my parents said, “Well, it’s obvious Adam’s going to be something creative.” But even from an early age, I was drawn to very dark cinema. One of the first films I saw was The Elephant Man by David Lynch, which I shouldn’t have seen. I was way too young. I wasn’t really into Disney and there was no Pixar at that stage in the early Eighties. But when I became a bit older, I discovered Jan Švankmajer and his film Alice, and I just loved his interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. That was probably my first real inkling and understanding of what stop-motion really was. We’d watch Gumby and all those other things, but I didn’t really know how it worked. But Alice really sparked my imagination and I’ve loved his work ever since, so I’d say Jan Švankmajer’s Alice.
I understand your writing process a bit like going down a rabbit hole of its own in that you let the details guide you. Can you elaborate a bit more on that? Do you have an image of this woman with a snail in her back, like the baggage she’s carrying, and then you create a character and develop the story from there?
It’s very organic and intuitive. I write in a very back-to-front way in that I start with the detail and my films are always character-driven. I have very detailed notebooks going back 30 or so years. When I get a basic idea for a film, I’ll start trawling through those notebooks and finding ingredients that I want. For this film, for example, I knew I wanted Guinea pigs. I knew I wanted John Denver in there somewhere. The trick is that once I have all these ingredients to then find a way of stringing them all together and getting a rhythm and a balance between the dark and the light—the comedy, the tragedy. I don’t obsess about plot too early. That happens in the third or fourth draft, and I have a wonderful script editor, Louise Gough, who is constantly challenging me, particularly with the structure, to be a bit more dynamic.
If you’re not an emotional wreck by the end of one of my films, then I failed. I really am out to make you distraught. That’s an ambition.
Why John Denver? He doesn’t seem like the most obvious member of the Mile High Club.
I was brought up with John Denver. My mother still plays him endlessly. If I hear “Take Me Home, Country Roads” one more time, I’ll… [He trails off and laughs.] I think he’s very kitsch too, and I’m surprised how many young people even know who he is.
I think it’s all through our parents. My dad plays him all the time. When you’re building the world for each of your films, how do you find the right aesthetic and mood to create the environment? Mary and Max has lots of black and white, like very much a classic film, and Memoir of a Snail has more earth tones, but even in terms of the characters, there’s a lot of continuity between say, Harvie Krumpet and Grace in terms of the faces and composition.
I am always striving to keep my aesthetic going, but at the same time, trying to evolve things. I always think of the very first episode of The Simpsons and what they look like today. They still have the same look, but they’re actually quite bizarrely different. It’s a matter of pushing myself, but also thinking carefully, particularly with the colour palette. How can I use colour as a filmic device? With this film, I thought the Seventies were a very brown period for me. Everyone was painting their houses brown in Australia and [there was] beige carpet and beige walls. I thought each of the cities—Melbourne, Canberra and Perth—can have their own colour palette. I’ve never liked blue or green, so I’ve always banned those colours and it makes my investors very nervous.
But I wanted this film to be very saturated, so the difference between this film and Mary and Max, which was very desaturated and of course, half of that film was black and white, but this film has a lot of warmth to it too, like using red as a spot colour, a bit like Schindler’s List to highlight things that are more symbolic and emphasize their importance. I do spend a lot of time picking the colours for this film. I went to the local hardware store and went up to the colour palette section, picked all my favourite browns, and then got big tins of paint mixed up. I have a lot of fun with the production design and production design is one of the hats I love wearing. I love writing, I love production design. I love editing. I hate animating. I never want to animate again.
But you’re an animator.
No, I hate it. I’ve retired, actually. I did one shot on this film: Grace animating a snail. I did it eight times. That’s how bad it was. So no, I just don’t have the patience, ironically.
How does it work then? I assume you have a big team and you have to ensure consistency throughout the shots and the design. What’s the workflow that takes an idea in your head and turns it into this character who then someone else moves and animates?
Luckily, I’ve got a really good team of production managers and line producers. They’re the ones who really assist with the continuity. We create a style bible as well, which everyone has to adhere to. That has everything from how does a character blink to how do they walk, so we have all these rules.
We use two words that we plaster all over the studio: “Chunky, wonky.” Every set character has to have a wonkiness and an asymmetry and a chunkiness to it. Even though the film looks very organic, it is very prescribed and planned. All animation, sadly, has to be that prescribed. There’s not much room for spontaneity. The sculptors can bring a bit of themselves too when they’re creating that. I have a wonderful animation supervisor, John Lewis, who really is a brilliant technician. He gives me a lot of advice and guidance.
In your “trilogy of trilogies,” how do you decide which story is a short, which one’s a short-short, which one’s a feature?
It’s tricky because for some characters I think, “I’d really like that character to be really fleshed out into a feature.” Luckily, I only do them one at a time. I have to start with a point of anger or frustration or agitation. With this film, my father left behind three giant sheds full of stuff, and we had to sort through it. I became really annoyed with him. Why didn’t he clear out all this stuff before he died? But then that annoyance led to fascination with hoarding. I started doing all this research and I went down that rabbit hole. I never thought I’d even get to number seven. I’m like the Plasticine version of Tarantino. I’ve only got two left, and then I can die.
Well, hopefully not. Do you think you can get away with being a bit more twisted in an animated film than you can in a live action? Your work is pretty much always referred to as “adult animation.” Why do you think there’s a distinction?
I get a lot of emails from angry parents saying, “Your films are not for children.” And I’m like, “Well, no, of course not. Why are you taking your children? They’re rated R—you shouldn’t even be in the cinema.” But I think it’s just that thing: We’ve all been brought up with animation as children. It’s perceived as a genre for children. But, of course, it’s not a genre. It’s a medium.
I’m always saying that animation’s a great vehicle to tell any story you want. The great thing about animation is our characters can look however we want them to. We have that wonderful tool of exaggeration where we can heighten an emotion or humour. I’m very comfortable in the animation sphere, and I think I’d really struggle in live action. I love pushing the boundaries. In this film, there’s Ken, who’s a feeder. [Ken encourages women to overeat because he has a fat fetish.] There’s the Gilbert’s gay conversion scene. [In which Gilbert, Grace’s brother, is forced into conversion therapy by his foster parents.] It’s my job as a writer to push not only myself but the audience. When I go and see a film, I want to see content that’s challenging. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I certainly want to make them go, “Oh, wow!”
A few years ago, there was a film about a shell named Marcel, who had some shoes on. You would’ve been right in the thick of production on this film, I assume, when that came out, so what was going through your head when you saw another stop-motion shell character?
Panic, panic, panic. I thought, “What? There’s a film about a snail coming out in stop motion?” But I saw it and it’s a wonderful, delightful film, but very different. So that was okay. Memoir of a Snail‘s not really about snails. It’s about this poor woman’s trauma and loss. The other weird coincidence was the first draft of this film was called Memoir of a Ladybird, and it was to be all about ladybirds. But then the film Lady Bird came out by Greta Gerwig. “Oh, my God, I can’t win!” It’s just the zeitgeist. There’s always going to be something that’s similar.
It’s interesting to be talking about this movie this morning [the day after the U.S. election] and you’re mentioning the zeitgeist. What do you think humans can learn from snails’ ability to only move forward?
I don’t want to talk about the elephant in the room, but I think I’m in this state of shock. I’m here in Los Angeles. I’m too scared to walk out the door in case there’s a riot. But Trump’s got everything he wanted, and we now just have to endure. I haven’t turned on the news yet, but I’m worried about the environment than anything else. I said to my agent here in Hollywood, “What happens if Trump wins?” And they said it should be okay because Trump loves Hollywood, but democracy…that’s another story.
I think we just all have to endure. It’s not much we can do now, but I worry for the arts. I worry Australia’s going to follow suit. We have a very progressive government at the moment that supports the arts, but there’s a lot of Trump-loving people in Australia. But film is a great escape, so let’s all escape to the cinema. I think my film might be a nice antidote to everything at the moment.
