Memoir of a Snail, the Order and More: Montclair Film Festival 2024 in Snapshot

The Montclair Film Festival is held in Montclair New Jersey at the Clairridge (A non-profit cinema in the area) every year during October. The festival includes American films, foreign films, short films and documentaries. Some of the films that were shown this year included Anora, The Order, The Piano Lesson, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and many more – of those playing at the festival, I was the new movie from Justin Kurzel, hispanic indie drama La Cocina, and the already acclaimed Memoir of a Snail.  

The Order is clearly a type of film that Justin Kurzel likes to make, a true crime thriller that doesn’t hold any punches. He has made other types of film both successful (Macbeth, 2015), and commercial failures (Assassin’s Creed, 2016), yet four out six of his feature films fit the true crime bill. Here, the story is set in the U.S. and follows Terry Husk (Jude Law), an embittered FBI agent who relocates to Idaho to try and catch a group of bank robbers, and later he finds out that they are connected to a major white supremist group, The Order. The character of Husk is something of a stereotype, in that he is a gritty, grizzled law enforcer, but Jude Law is still able to bring a lot to the character and his interactions. The antagonist of the film, Bob Matthews, is played with an eerie calmness by Nicholas Hoult, his portrayal reminded me of the scary normalization of racism that someone like David Duke brought to white supremist culture. The cinematography is gorgeous, which is far too uncommon in the modern action thriller, but there are some great shots of the Idaho landscape that show the emptiness and the percieved lawlessness of the American West.  My only real issue with the film is the story, at times it felt formulaic and overly “Hollywood” – I won’t get into details, but I felt the ending was somewhat let down by its overly dramatic nature. 

La Cocina is directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios and stars Raúl Briones Carmona and Rooney Mara. The story focuses on the workers in a New York City restaurant, one which specifically features many immigrant workers with the director trying to tell a story about the plight of these workers and the hardships that they have to endure to work in America. To its credit, Ruizpalacious is able to create tension very well. Certain scenes are quite gripping, especially two scenes that either are one shot takes or cleverly stitched together, these two scenes show the insanity of a restaurant’s kitchen and the chaos that ensues when its at its busiest. Unfortunately, the film ends up being boring and somewhat unfulfilling, part of the reason for this is the main character, Pedro, portrayed by Raúl Briones Carmona. While I prefer movies with complex and possibly flawed protagonists, Pedro is neither of these – there really wasn’t anything redeeming about his character, with him behaving like an ass the entire time. Which was unfortunate as the film is telling an important story. Some may be turned off and struggle to engage with the important themes because the main character us just so difficult to get on with. If that wasn’t enough, La Cocina is also drawn out (running for near enough 2 and half hours), and often test the patiences. Out of the three movies I saw at Montclair, it’ll come as no surprise to report that this was my least favorite. 

Memoir of a Snail is the newest film by Adam Elliot, though only his second feature length behind the camera. While I have not seen any of his other work, I was determined to see it because of my love of stop motion and it was one of two animated films in the Montclair lineup. Though if you think that this is a film for kids just because it is animated, you will be unfortunately mistaken. The story follows Grace Pudel, a loner and outcast who becomes obsessed with snails. Grace is voiced by Sarah Snook (Run Rabbit Run & Succession), who does an amazing job at conveying the wide range of neccesary emotions, another key standout of the voice cast is Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom & Silver Linings Playbook), who plays Pinky, a surrogate mother figure to Grace. As well as being the comic relief of the story, Pinky is also given some of the key emotional moments too. 

The animation is quite good but I was surprised by how captivating the story was. If there was any issue I had with Memoir of a Snail, it would be that the story loses its way around the middle with it becoming more emotionally destressing, with the humor becoming more of an after thought. Elliot’s film does a great job of balancing potentially upsetting material with dark humor but the humor vanishes for a spell thankfully humor returns in time for the beautiful ending. If I was put on the spot, I’d say this was my favorite film of those I saw during the festival. 

Ben’s Archive – Memoir of a Snail & Montclair Film Festival 2024

For more on Montclair Film Festival 2024, click here for the guide book