"Memoir of Snail" love and mortality.

I had no expectations when I decided to watch Memoir of a Snail... I knew it had been nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Film, and I also knew that Sarah Snook (who many of us knew as Shiv Roy in Succession) voiced its protagonist, but the truth is that I had no reason to even give it a chance, not because I considered it bad directly, but because my focus was simply on other works.

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The thing is that despite this, from time to time I find it enjoyable to give movies a chance without giving it too much thought, and I am grateful that Memories of Snail happened to be exactly this.

The stop motion animated film directed by Adam Elliot can be defined as a comedy where we follow Grace Pudel, a lonely girl who has led a rather tragic life.

Memoir of A Snail has a style very reminiscent of what we might expect from someone like Tim Burton, using gothic and picturesque elements that are overflowing with imagination. But beyond its physical appearance, what makes it work so well are its endearing characters, starting with the aforementioned Grace, and her twin brother from whom she is tragically separated after the death of her father: Gilbert.

The film flows as if it were a short film, and for that reason it is praiseworthy that it manages to hook us for an hour and a half. Memories of a Snail works like a poem, where Sarah's narration recontextualizes everything we see from the perspective of Grace, a girl who has had a rather complicated life, but who always seems to find something to make life worthwhile. I really enjoyed her style of acid humor, and it seems to me to be a very important piece in this movement that seeks to show that animated cinema is not necessarily for children.

Although it is plagued with many recognizable aesthetic elements (As I said before, we could well associate it with Burton's gothic style), Memories of a Snail manages to feel refreshing, taking an unexpected course but perfectly coherent with what we saw from the beginning.

Its music is beautiful, its animation is very well done, and the character design conveys a very particular tenderness, without having to give up its more sinister notes.

This score was taken directly from my Letterboxd account.