Blair Loveday
Adam Elliot is an incredible Australian filmmaker that I heard of, but never actually saw any of his movies.
Well I was able to correct that in style with the new box set The Adam Elliot Collection on Bluray, and I am incredibly glad that I have corrected it now.
Adam Elliot is kicked off his successful career by making some short films using clay and stop motion. With them winning some awards including an oscar for best animated short, he moved into a couple of feature length films that weren’t just successful, he earned another Oscar nomination. So how have I not watched these before? Well, a lot of movies earn Oscars and I don’t have enough time to watch everything. Hell, some of the people that vote for Oscars don’t watch them all. Oops I got political there.
Anyway, The Adam Elliot Collection compiles his main films, Cousin, Vrother, Uncle, Harvie Krumpte, Ernie Biscuit, Mary and Max, and his latest masterpiece, Memoir of a Snail. I won’t go into what each movie is a about, because that would be far too long but will cover off some to get you a slice of what you are in for. Cousin, Brother, and Uncle are his first 3 films that are semi autobiographical. They are all in black and white and the clay figures clearly show the finger prints from being molded. This gives the movies a really sweet charm, which is kinda needed as they are super dark.
Then jumping to one of his longer short films, the award winning Harvie Krumpet the darkness built into his story telling is punctuated with some excellent humour. Here we have a child born to a family of lower class people in Poland. With a mother going mad from lead poisoning, Harvey is disadvantaged from the get go, genetically and emotionally. This strange fella heads over to Australia when the war breaks out, where he still struggles to get by. This isn’t helped by his luck where he has fun like being hit by lightening which magentises the metal plate in his head. Despite the misfortune, Harvey winds up making good with his life, and it winds up with a sweet ending. The dark humour, the dark tones, and the sweetness coming through makes the movie an emotional rollercoaster that I really enjoyed.
Then taking the feature film Memoir of a Snail that released last year, we get another emotional rollercoaster. The filmmaking has gone to another level with incredible detail in every shot. Here we have twins who are born, and go through some really tough times. They love each other dearly, but are treated like crap by the world. This one has a lot less of the dark humour, and is more just a long dark story that has emotional ups and downs, before finishing on a pretty sweet and solid up.
I am desperately trying to explain these excellent movies without spoiling the content, because you really deserve to enjoy these blind. His movies have some common stylistic choices. This isn’t just the fact that they are all claymation, but they tend to be narrated really well to move the plot along.
This Collection isn’t just special because of all his movies. There are some fantastic special features including a weird hand drawn type of piece. It is housed inside a box with a soft cover art book with some beautiful photos and insights. Then there are the art cards. Thanks to the beautiful and distinct style of his works, these art cards are especially cool and really deserve to be framed or something.
If you haven’t seen all or any of Adam Elliot’s work, then I can think of no better way to correct it. You need to be in the right mind space to enjoy these, but when you do, they are truly incredible. But don’t let the charming claymation style trick you, these are for watching after the kids have gone to bed as they are dark, and detailed in areas you may not expect.
