‘It’s the perfect discipline for telling stories for adults’: The film The Snail’s Memory shatters prejudices surrounding animation.

Fifteen years after the release of his first film, Mary and Max, Oscar-winning director Adam Elliott returns to cinema with his second project, which was recently awarded the Feature Film Crystal at the 2024 Annecy Festival: Memoirs of a Snail.

This tragicomedy takes us into the life of a young Grace Poodle, a snail collector. Separated from his twin brother Gilbert when their father died, he ended up in foster care. Grace gradually sinks into despair until her saving encounter with Pinky, an eccentric octogenarian who teaches her to love life and come out of her shell…

An inspired and inspiring project

On the occasion of its release in cinemas in France, we were able to catch up with Adam Elliott, who came to talk to us about the genesis of the film and his very personal story, born from his imagination almost ten years ago. “It all started when dad died, aheight years. He left three garages full of stuff. I wondered why some people hoard before hoarding.”

After that, the idea of ​​turning it into the subject of the next feature film appeared in the mind of the director, who first turned to experts and specialized books on syllogism: “I’ve found that many people with this behavioral disorder have experienced trauma, often related to the loss of a child or sibling.”

From this context, Adam Eliot begins to create his hero, supported by a notebook, which he fills with all kinds of reflections over the course of thirty years. It is in these writings that he finds a mention of a friend born with a rabbit’s lips. “He was bullied at school because of it, but he’s become a confident adult.” Those few words written in a diary years ago gave rise to the character of Grace Poodle, a young woman with a cleft lip and a compulsive snail collector.

However, the totemic animal is very different from the one originally chosen by the Australian artist: “Initially, the film was called “Memoirs of Ladybird”. But soon the film “Lady Bird“‘s Greta Gerwig It turned out that made me question this choice. I realized that Ladybug had a sweet and optimistic side that didn’t really fit the story. So I started looking for another animal.”

Then the snail turns out to be the big winner in this reflection for three reasons: “First, if you touch their antennae, they pull back, which gives them this label of introverts of the animal world. Second, the shell spiral is a reminder of the cycle of life and the repetitive side of things. And finally, you should know that snails cannot go back, they are forced to go forward.

Features in line with the film’s message of hope and its director’s favorite quote: “Life should be lived looking to the future, but it can only be understood by looking back” by Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard.

Fun for adults

Building on the success of Mary and Max, the feature film Cristal at the 2009 Annecy Festival and his Oscar-winning short film Harvey Crumpet, Adam Elliott continues his momentum and approaches the snail’s memoir through the lens of animation.

“It’s the perfect discipline for telling stories for adults. It’s an art that offers us this great tool, which is exaggeration. It allows us to emphasize, to amplify emotions. I think my films wouldn’t work if they were done in live action.”

You should know that snails cannot move backwards. They are forced to move forward.

Art direction choices quantified over several decades of shooting, some 200 sets, 135,000 shots, and thousands of hours spent in the dark moving the characters frame by frame: “Stop motion is very time consuming, but if I used digital I would spend days sitting in front of a screen. What I like is glue, painting, sculpting.”

Behind this passion for 3D and manual work is also a desire to deconstruct stubborn prejudices that associate animation with children’s content. According to Adam Elliott, a stereotype that is firmly established in the United States, especially because of the Disney and Warner Bros. companies. In Europe, he says, productions such as Sylvain Chaumet’s Les Triplettes de Belleville led to greater acceptance of animation as a “genre” among adults: “That’s why I talk about Paris in the film, the French have a sensitivity to the dark side of cinema.

A story of laughter, tears and imperfection

“If you’re not completely flushed emotionally after watching one of my films, I’ve failed.” reveals Adam Elliott when asked about his ulterior motives behind his stories. On the border of tragedy and comedy, the director has fun balancing humor and pathos, confident in the effectiveness of such a mixture in society.

A double aspect that we find in his scripts, but also in the way he works with his characters: “It’s strange, because I’m a very square and organized person. But I think that if we look too much for perfection, we risk forgetting what we’re working for. I try to create my characters, visually and psychologically, respectively. Kintsugi is hard to explain, but mostly I actively work on their imperfections .

Are you going to the Oscars in 2025?

After winning the top prize at the Annecy Festival in June 2024, Memoirs of a Snail is slowly moving towards a high probability of an Oscar. “We are waiting to see if he will be one of the nominees, meanwhile the film was nominated for the Golden Globe, but he is my friend.” Gints Zilbalodis who won it with his feature film”stream” (Jury Prize, Audience Prize at the 2024 Annecy Festival). It’s always like that. I understand, he loses. I lose, he wins.”

But instead of thinking about his future potential rewards, Adam Elliot prefers to look at the future like his snails, and has already started writing his next project, which promises to be very different from his previous work.

“I realized that I have made too many films where the main characters are locked in their suburbs, in their little room. So I want my future heroes to be outdoors. Why not on the road? The hero of my next feature will be a kind of old eccentric.”

Memoirs of a Snail is released in French cinemas on Wednesday 15 January.