By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Adam Elliot
Starring: Dominique Pinon | Eric Bana | Jacki Weaver | Kodi Smit-McPhee | Sarah Snook
Year: 2024
Running time: 94
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23770030/reference/
Diane says: “Ten years after MARY AND MAX, Australian stop-motion filmmaker Adam Elliot presents another tragicomedy in the form of biography. The film proper starts deep in the mouth of a dying old woman (who, when the camera is pulled back, turns out to look a lot like Iris Apfel). The younger woman at her bedside is Grace. As Grace begins to grieve the loss of her friend, she narrates her own life story to us.
“For a taste: after the death of her father, a paraplegic former Parisian street performer/stop-motion animator, Grace and her twin brother, a vegetarian pyromaniac, are both consigned to foster homes.
“MEMOIR is designed in beautiful colors–tones of blacks and grays and rust. The animation is exquisite. Among the scenes: animated archival TV footage, scenes from a nude cruise, the making of a stop-action film.
“The film eventually loses its narrative drive, perhaps because It’s a life too full of trauma, affliction, and betrayal. There is some pretty gruesome stuff (hilarious as well as horrifying) that doesn’t lose any impact for being done in clay. But as Grace learns to come out of her [snail]shell, a happy ending is in sight. 4 cats.
“Screened at Telluride-by-the-Sea.”
Memoir of a Snail