Memoirs of a Snail (2024, directed by Adam Elliot) exemplifies how crucial time and pacing are in storytelling. In the glut era of Computer-Generated Images (CGI) animation, Australia produced traditional stop-motion work that takes time. This measured pace is a metaphor for the snail and the nature of making such a deep and beautiful work. This movie takes time to reach its beautiful point (and what a profound one it is!), just like a lesson from a laggard snail, arguably even slower than an encumbered tortoise.
This is among the bleakest animated films in recent memory. Though animation is not just for kids, viewing a cartoon with such adult themes is still jarring. The cinematography is like being inside a snail’s shell—cramped, dank, dark, and suffocating. The film delves into how others are so deprived of love, not just the romantic kind, but the kind with a substantial connection; the suffocation is not only present but thought to be deserved.
The excellent Sarah Snook (Australian actor who famously portrayed Shiv in HBO’s Succession series) voices the lead character in Memoirs of a Snail. Snook speaks in uncertain whispers, as one would imagine a snail would sound. She talks like a victim of immense trauma and abuse or somebody who grew up being told they are better off silenced.
Snook’s character, Grace Pudel, is part of a twin whose brother has been protective of her. Both of them were born and grew up in tragedy (their mother died in childbirth, and their father is an alcoholic paraplegic) and its attendant violence. Their mother left behind knick-knacks in the shape of snails. These are the only connections Grace has to their mother, and perhaps this is why she has metamorphosed emotionally into a snail.
The snails are not only a reminder of weird ornaments but, eventually, a life lesson that no self-help book could teach. This movie is an effective metaphor for how to live one’s life by emulating the snail.
Make no mistake; this film is not for children because it is not feel-good until its last moments, but it has a truly adult trajectory that deals with sexual frankness, addiction, and conservative violence brought by religious fanaticism. You find yourself rooting for the lead character. You want her to win but are also gnashing at the level of her blindness to self-destruction. And, perhaps, that’s the point—nobody realizes they have lost control over their lives until they are forced to see it for themselves in a violent confrontation.
It is not physically violent, but it is a good emotional shaking to your senses.
Like the snail, the movie asks us to pause and look at the slow, small things. In this world of accelerated instant gratification with this urge to indulge in elaborate displays of having the “best life,” the snail offers a point of view and approach to a life lived through pain, but life in full.
You may reach Chong Ardivilla at kartunistatonto@gmail.com or chonggo.bsky.social
