Memoir of a Snail (2024)

The work of the director and the entire technical team is excellent, and is one of the strengths of the film, which knows how to mix quite well the comic elements with the more dramatic ones, with the appearance of many characters, in this narration of the life of that lady who wears on her head a snail hat, and collects all kinds of various objects related to this mollusk.

The film was shot during 8 years, and uses claymation (animation technique that uses plasticine for the creation of its characters and stop motion).

One of the film's strengths is that the narration of each of the situations by the main character, voiced in the original version by actress Sarah Snook, does not become tiresome.

There are some very powerful characters, especially Pinky, whom we see in the first scene of the film bedridden, before we are told what happened many years ago when the protagonist was not even born.

The problem is that there are too many characters, and we want to tell “almost everything” about each of them, so we find ourselves with a succession of ellipses, which make us lose interest in the most important characters.

Despite all this, the film plays quite well with this mixture of genres, has some witty comic details, some unexpected surprises in the final part, and many moments where it manages to touch the most sensitive fiber, as we get to know this life full of unfortunate situations.

The animals, and especially the snail, are present at all times, in some metaphors that can be extrapolated to real life. The filmmaker makes a social criticism, not in a direct way, to religious extremism and the damage they are doing to many people with their outdated ideas.

The film, which won the main prize at the prestigious Annecy festival, is aimed at the more adult audience, but it can also be seen by the youngest members of the family, who I am sure will enjoy this animation proposal different from what they are used to consume in Hollywood productions.