Adam Elliot: Out of Your Shell

This interview was originally published in The Big Issue #722. Buy a copy and support your local vendor!

“I always try and press every button I possibly can emotionally on a person in the audience,” Adam Elliot tells me over Zoom. “The last thing I want is apathy or indifference.”

After winning over worldwide audiences (and bagging an Oscar) with his stop-motion short Harvie Krumpet (2003), the acclaimed Aussie writer-director-animator’s debut feature Mary and Max (2009) enchanted with its darkly comedic story of international, inter-generational pen-pals. Fifteen years on, his new film Memoir of a Snail continues Elliot’s offbeat take on human connection, through a bittersweet tale of lonely oddballs, self-actualisation and coming out of your shell.

Memoir of a Snail follows Grace Pudel (Succession’s Sarah Snook) recounting her life’s story to her favourite pet snail, Sylvia. It’s a tale of absurdities and tragedies, told from the very beginning—sharing a womb with her twin brother, Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee). When their father dies, the twins are placed in separate foster homes on opposite ends of Australia, each traumatic in different ways. Faced with the loss of her childhood home and biological family, Grace struggles to take control of her own life, but finds strength in her friendship with elderly eccentric Pinky (Jacki Weaver). The ensemble boasts local stars including Eric Bana, Magda Szubanski, Tony Armstrong, and Elliot himself. 

Grace’s quirky childhood affinity with snails eventually spirals into self-destructive coping mechanisms. “Earlier drafts it wasn’t snails, it was ladybirds, but the more I tried to develop that, it just felt ladybirds were too cute, and then that film Lady Bird came out,” Elliot explains wryly. Eventually he settled on the common garden gastropod. “Grace is always retracting into herself and her shell. I also love the motif of the swirl, the symbolism of the swirl. It has to do with life going full circle. Also, the idea of a snail never going back over its trail was really quite poetic and beautiful.” He pauses. “Mind you, if I see another snail at the moment, I feel like stepping on them. I’m so sick of snails.”

In a twist of tech-dystopian irony, the subject of computer-generated imagery—which has developed rapidly in the decade since Elliot’s last feature—is introduced into our conversation by the computer itself. When Elliot gives a thumbs-up, Zoom’s gesture recognition pops a matching emoji next to his head. He’s no fan of the software’s automated intrusion, or so-called “AI” more broadly. “Why is AI going for artists? Why are artists and poets the first cab off the rank? Why aren’t they trying to get rid of politicians? Why is AI not trying to solve climate change?”

The handcrafted stop-motion techniques employed by Memoir of a Snail’s animators are no less sophisticated or inventive than digital methods. Characters’ pupils are attached to their eyeballs with tiny magnets; effects like running water and tears are achieved using lube. “We love paint, and we love glue and we love scissors and cutting things out,” Elliot enthuses. “We’re just little kids.” 

Several of the props, sets and characters are now on display at ACMI, where the team’s passion and craft are visible in every meticulous creation. “We celebrate the fingerprints and the lumps and the bumps, which is also what the characters themselves are—their lives are imperfect.”

As with Mary and Max, Elliot’s imperfect portraits mix the mundane with the macabre. Memoir of a Snail depicts difficult topics rarelyexplored  in animation, like homophobic conversion practices and hoarding. Elliot credits a current “golden era of animation” allowing such complex stories to be told, and places himself at the darker end of the storytelling spectrum—though Memoir of a Snail also has its fair share of laugh-out-loud moments. 

Much of the humour comes from the richness of Elliot’s observations of Australia, through warped visions of Luna Park, Collingwood, and the suffocating banality of suburban Canberra. Scenes are packed with visual gags, including references to two of Elliot’s favourite films: local classic The Castle, and more esoterically, 1991 French post-apocalyptic comedy Delicatessen. “If they don’t laugh at some of the jokes, part of me dies,” he quips. “I put a lot of time and effort into the humour, and we need the humour in the film to balance out the darkness. I love that quote, ‘Without the dark, the light has no meaning.’ It’s getting the balance between the comedy and the tragedy, the humour and the pathos.”

Elliot is open about his desire to deeply affect an audience emotionally: “I love it when I see them pull out their tissues, and it’s a sick thing to wish for but I really want people to be crying.” His dark comedic streak flashes. “If they’re not crying by the end—well, if they’re not an emotional wreck by the end of the film I feel like I’ve failed.” 

But while Elliot clarifies he doesn’t think filmmakers save lives, his hopes for the response to his work are no less vital. “I want them to be nourished. I want them to have laughed, cried, had a deep think about themselves and the people around them, how they treat others. I want them to empathise with my characters. I certainly want them to leave the cinema slightly altered.” A work of art’s emotional truth leaves an impression, like fingerprints on clay. “I love that idea of feeling slightly better as a human being after you’ve watched a film.”