Marcel the Shell with Shoes on

Dean Fleischer Camp: Marcel the Shell with Shoes on (US 2021).

2021

Animation / Fantasy / Feel-Good Humour

Theme: Animated Dreams

Country: United States

Director: Dean Fleischer Camp

Screenplay: Dean Fleischer Camp, Jenny Slate, Nick Paley

Starring: Jenny Slate, Isabella Rossellini, Dean Fleischer Camp, Rosa Salazar, Thomas Mann, Lesley Stahl

Production: Dean Fleischer Camp, Andrew Goldman, Elisabeth Holm, Caroline Kaplan, Terry Leonard, Paul Mezey, Jenny Slate / Cinereach

Duration: 90 min

Rating: S

Festival premiere: Telluride Film Festival, 3 Sep 2021

Kino-Palatsi 2, Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF), 16 Sep 2023

Bilge Ebiri (Telluride Film Festival 2021): " You’re going to love Marcel. He’s a tiny, chatty, one-eyed young seashell who can walk and talk and opine about the marvelous world around him. He lives with his Lesley Stahl-loving grandmother (also a seashell, and voiced by Isabella Rossellini) in an Airbnb when the home’s latest guest, a filmmaker named Dean, decides to make a short documentary about him and post it online. How will Marcel respond to his newfound internet celebrity? And how will it change his life? This feature-length version of the award-winning short collaboration between actress Jenny Slate and director Dean Fleischer-Camp—a hilariously creative mock-documentary combination of live-action and stop-motion animation—might make you think differently about your own humanity. What starts off as a goodnatured, offbeat slice-of-life turns into a deeply moving meditation on kindness, curiosity, community, and learning to accept change and move on. –BE (U.S., 2021, 90m) In person: Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate "

Katri Tenhola (HIFF 2023): " Mitä jos perheesi ja ystäväsi vain yhtäkkiä katoaisivat jäljettömiin? Vaikea tilanne kelle tahansa, mutta erityisen haastava, jos sattuu olemaan ihmisille suunnitellussa asunnossa elävä pikkuruinen simpukankuori, jolla on yksi silmä ja kengät. Toveriksi jäävät viisas isoäiti Connie (äänenä Isabella Rossellini) sekä kämpässä ennen asuneen pariskunnan tilalle muuttanut mies. Mies on haluton kertomaan itsestään mutta kuvaa Marcelin elämästä dokkaripätkiä, jotka hän lataa YouTubeen. Yllättäen lapsenomaisen ja neuvokkaan kuorikaverin tuntevat miljoonat katsojat ympäri maailman. "

" Parhaan animaatioelokuvan Oscar- ja Golden Globe-ehdokkuudet saanut animoitu muka-dokumentti sai alkunsa miljoonia katselukertoja YouTubessa keränneistä Marcel the Shell with Shoes on -lyhytelokuvista ja niiden kylkeen tehdyistä lastenkirjoista. Aluksi se hurmaa sympaattisuudellaan, sitten taituruudellaan. Miten ihmeessä stop motion -animaatio on saatu yhdistettyä näyteltyyn elokuvaan niin, että lopputulos näyttää YouTubeen ladatulta amatööridokkarilta? Tekijöiden työ vertautuu Marcelin kekseliäisyyteen, jolla tämän onnistuu selviytyä hänelle kaikin tavoin liian suuressa maailmassa apunaan vaikkapa sähkövatkain ja lattialle valunut vaahterasiirappi. Tai kuten kengällinen kuori pohtii: ”Ei vain selviytyä, vaan elää hyvää elämää.” " Katri Tenhola

Quoted by HIFF 2023: " This feature film, directed by Dean Fleischer Camp and starring the voice of Jenny Slate, is a dazzlingly clever blend of live action and stop-motion animation. It’s based on—and alludes to—a series of short films that the two made and posted to YouTube. Marcel (Slate) is a tiny seashell with one eye, a mouth, a pair of feet, a sharp mind, and a very big heart. A filmmaker named Dean (Fleischer Camp) rents a house, finds Marcel there, and decides to make a documentary about him. Marcel lives with his grandmother, Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini), in a state of grief, after the disappearance of the many members of their extended family, and Dean helps him to look for them. Along the way, Dean makes short videos that turn Marcel into a Web sensation with tens of millions of viewers—and with toxic fans. " Richard Brody, The New Yorker

" Dean’s relationship with this imaginary tiny mollusc is absolutely convincing, and their odd-couple rapport is so strong it takes an effort of will to remember that Marcel doesn’t exist. He’s not big enough to hug … but I sort of felt like it. " Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Language: English

Distribution: Park Circus

Print source: Park Circus

Cinematography: Eric Adkins, Bianca Cline

Editing: Dean Fleischer Camp, Nick Paley

Music: Disasterpeace

Sound: Phillip Fuller, Ruy García

Production design: Liz Toonkel, Jake Tremblay

Costume design: Jamie Catino

Make-up: Stacey Hummell

AA: Imagination and creativity unbound, breathtaking and brilliant visions one after another. Marcel the Shell with Shoes on by Dave Fleischer Camp and Jenny Slate is more than the sum of its inventions. It invents its own way of being and mode of narration. On the one hand it is a tale of the worldview of a talking mollusc. On the other hand it is a meta-fiction about its online existence and being discovered as a topic for a prominent television show.

Realistic nature footage and the behind-the-screen account of television production blend seamlessly. The brilliant animation is an inseparable part of the cinematic discourse. The feeling of texture is impeccable in all dimensions of being.

The revelations of the "little world" belong to a great lineage of the cinéfantastique and the nature documentary, including The Incredible Shrinking Man and Microcosmos.

The barrage of clever inventions is inexhaustible, and the cute narration by Jenny Slate dominates the soundtrack. Having seen this film for the first time I look forward to revisiting it. A question lingers: is this a film stronger in parts than as a whole?