Over the past two decades, Oscar-winning filmmaker Adam Elliot has made a name for himself for his painstakingly crafted, biographical stop-motion films. His short film Harvie Krumpet won an Oscar in 2004. His debut feature Mary and Max (2009), starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette, has a 95-per-cent Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And his latest “clayography”, Memoir of a Snail, opened Melbourne Film Festival 2024.
Featuring an all-star Australian cast, Memoir of a Snail follows Grace Pudel (voiced by Succession’s Sarah Snook), a misfit hoarder who collects snails. Grace and her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog) are forcibly moved to separate states by child services following the death of their alcoholic, paraplegic father. Grace develops a friendship with vibrant Pinky (Jacki Weaver) which brings her new hope in her grief.
“The film started about eight years ago”, Elliot tells Broadsheet. “My father had just passed away, and he was a bit of a collector. He had three sheds full of stuff. He was a mild hoarder. My mum as well, she still collects stuff. And it was like, ‘Why, as human beings, do we collect all this stuff? Why do we have all this stuff that we obviously don’t need?”
Elliot studied collectors and spoke to a psychiatrist in order to understand the psychology of hoarding. “I started to read a lot of books on extreme hoarding. And the more research I did, the more I found that extreme hoarders have had a lot of trauma in their lives, and more often than not have lost a child or a sibling. I became really fascinated by all that.”
Elliot’s films can take over six months to shoot, and his latest feature is no different. Filmed over 33 weeks, without any digital effects, Memoir of a Snail’s sets and props are entirely handmade – all 7000 objects in total.
“We wanted to do something 100-per-cent what’s called in-camera. So, every prop, set and character is something real that you could hold in your hand. The flames are yellow cellophane, the cigarette smoke is cotton wool,” he says.
A highlight for the director was working with Sarah Snook, which Elliot says was a delight. “Sarah was great. We did I think six [recording] sessions. She had a real empathy with the character. She really knew what Grace was going through.”
Elliot says he hopes his new film helps destigmatise hoarding as a mental illness. “[In] all my films, what ties them together is that I’m trying to get audiences to empathise with people who are perceived as strange or unusual or misunderstood. I’m not interested in fantasy. I’m just interested in everyday people.”
Memoir of a Snail is in cinemas from October 17.