A bittersweet stop-motion tragicomedy that delicately unpacks a lifetime of loneliness, finding hope in the slow, forward-moving resilience of a snail.
Memoir of a Snail
"Life can only be understood backwards, but we have to live it forwards."
Director:
Adam Elliot
Cast:
Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver, Magda Szubanski, Dominique Pinon
Drama
Animation
Comedy
Budget:
$4,350,000
Box Office:
$7
Memoir of a Snail - Easter Eggs & Hidden Details
Easter Eggs
A tiny jar containing the real fingertip of one of the animators appears in several scenes.
During production, an animator accidentally cut off the tip of her finger. The crew decided to preserve it in a tiny jar and included it in the background of Grace's hoard as a macabre and darkly humorous inside joke.
A butcher shop in a street scene is a tribute to the film 'Delicatessen'.
Director Adam Elliot is a fan of the French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and a butcher character looking through a shop window is a direct homage to a similar character in Jeunet's 1991 film 'Delicatessen'.
In the background of a scene where Grace's father is watching 'The Two Ronnies' on TV, a specific joke from David Foster Wallace's novel 'Infinite Jest' can be heard.
The joke about a dyslexic, atheist insomniac wondering about the existence of a 'dog' is a direct lift from the novel, indicating the film's literary influences and adding a layer of intertextual humor.