Memoir of a Snail - new animated film from the Director of Mary and Max and Harvie Krumpet

The Cunting Death

The Cunting Death

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This is probably one of the few films in the last ten years I've been genuinely hyped for. Adam Elliot, the Oscar winning director behind Harvie Krumpet and Mary and Max, finally has a new film coming out, and it's his second one since 2009's Mary and Max (which is legitimately my all time favorite movie).

It's about twins who get separated after their alcoholic father dies (their mom died in childbirth). It sounds like it would be boring and miserable as shit but Adam has some great ways of turning that shit both hilarious and heartwarming.

Here's the trailer for Mary and Max in case anyone hasn't seen it


Here's Harvie Krumpet (in full)
 
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Am I in the Matrix? I just re-watched Mary and Max a few days ago. I remembered it from my childhood and it stuck with me since and then I found it for free on YouTube. Glad he's still making movies! this one seems promising.
 
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I'm Retarded? said:
whenever you make hype posts like this you're guaranteed to get one or two posters who try to make it about niggers or troons or various other politisperg-adjacent topics
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you're right.

your name also rings true to me right now.
 
Irregardless said:
Idk man, I dig the creative style and everything, but Mary and Max was said by the creator to be a pro-communist film, and while I think it was a good watch, I just can't endorse anything made by communists.
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I think Max, the obese jewish guy with aspergers, mentioned he was a communist once in the movie. What an endorsement.

Honestly it's just reactionary quibbling to pick that aspect out from Mary and Max and take issue with it. It's like In Praise of Shadows complaining that Wendigoon is friends with gun youtubers.
 
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ShiftyBoi said:
I think Max, the obese jewish guy with aspergers, mentioned he was a communist once in the movie. What an endorsement.
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Oh. That

Yeah it was part of a joke that a few seconds earlier, was asked if he was a member of any radical groups. He said no, but forgot to mention he was a communist. It's literally there for a gag.
 
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One day, this man walks out of his house to go to work and he sees this snail on his porch. So he picks it up and chucks it over his roof into the back yard.

Snail bounces off a rock, cracks its shell all to shit and lands in the grass. Snail lies there, dying.

But it doesn't die. It eats some grass, slowly heals, grows a new shell...and after a while, it can crawl again.

One day the snail up and heads back over to the front of the house. Finally after about a year, the little guy crawls back on the porch.

Right then, the man walks out to go to work and he sees this snail again. So he says to it:

"the fuck's your problem?!"
 
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I'm not trying to be an asshole when I ask this. I've seen the trailer for Mary and Max and I'm quite intrigued. Why in your opinion should I watch this movie?
 
ShiftyBoi said:
I think Max, the obese jewish guy with aspergers, mentioned he was a communist once in the movie. What an endorsement.

Honestly it's just reactionary quibbling to pick that aspect out from Mary and Max and take issue with it. It's like In Praise of Shadows complaining that Wendigoon is friends with gun youtubers.
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The Cunting Death said:
Oh. That

Yeah it was part of a joke that a few seconds earlier, was asked if he was any member of any radical groups. He said no, but forgot to mention he was a communist. It's literally there for a gag.
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This wasn't what I was talking about, I was talking about the actual creator being pro-commie, but maybe I'm just fuckin retarded. Honestly it's w/e, I'm not trying to be reactionary as much as I don't like weird subversive shit, but at the end of the day it's just a movie.
 
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Cats said:
One day, this man walks out of his house to go to work and he sees this snail on his porch. So he picks it up and chucks it over his roof into the back yard.

Snail bounces off a rock, cracks its shell all to shit and lands in the grass. Snail lies there, dying.

But it doesn't die. It eats some grass, slowly heals, grows a new shell...and after a while, it can crawl again.

One day the snail up and heads back over to the front of the house. Finally after about a year, the little guy crawls back on the porch.

Right then, the man walks out to go to work and he sees this snail again. So he says to it:

"the fuck's your problem?!"
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you make my favorite posts here, Cats.
 
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New trailer

Coming out next month in Aussie theaters, comes to American theaters the following week

 
I saw mary and max and thought it was neat, a cute little slice of life film about two pen pals so I had high hopes for memoir of a snail, but I think its a downgrade in every way.

Mary and Max was a slice of life film with a little bit of drama, while memoir of a snail is emotionaly manipulative misery porn through and through.

The entire movie can be distilled to a series of "And then it got worse, do you feel bad for her yet?" Statements.

"She was born with a cleft lip. And then her mom died. And then she was bullied. And then her dad got crippled. And then her dad died. And then she was seperated from her brother. And then her new parents left her. And then her gay brother was burned to death by homophobes. And then her husband was sterile. And then her husband turned out to be a feeder fetishist. And then her best friend got dementia. And then-"

People think this movie is high cinema because it has a novel artstyle and makes you feel sad watching it, no shit it makes you feel sad watching it, yeah I could toss puppies into a woodchipper for 3 hours straight and film it, that would make you feel sad too, doesn't make it high cinema.

Watching this movie I was less engaged with the plot and more trying to predict what comically over the top horrible thing would happen next. The gay brother being burned alive (yeah yeah he survives last second whatever) and the feeder husband were curveballs but I predicted everything else.

It would unironically work better as a comedy because then all the absurdity would be self aware instead of manipulative.
 
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tbh from the trailer they had in front of Gundam the impression I got was that it was some sort of warm-hearted dark comedy
 
I committed the mistake of watching Mary and Max and Memoir back-to-back. So imo Memoir has two problems.

It crammed too much in the story, it knows it and doesn't expect the audience to keep up so you have stuff like re-contextualizing sequences like the beginning and Gilbert's "death", the movie's tagline being repeated twice in the last half hour, the last ten minutes. You have stuff like how inconsequential Gracie's parents were to everything but still got sequences for themselves whereas Gilbert's trek could've been a more interesting use of time and budget specially with 'I will cross the desert for you' being repeated twice.

Memoir echoes too much of Mary and Max to stand on its own. You could make a bingo sheet out of all the moments that repeat in both and chances are I could point out at least five you missed if you tried. The main difference is that Gracie feels like a drastically less active protagonist over a longer stretch of time, and yes that's her gimmick but she still belongs to a story that didn't do enough to set itself apart imo. The main thing that sets her apart is that she sees the glass half-empty but the plot still happens to her.

To be clear, I did enjoy this movie (just not as much as I wanted to) but maybe it will age better once I step back with my expectations and a little more wisdom. It isn't Humanz levels of 'I wonder how I was ever into this'.
 
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