The story goes that Marcel, a mollusc with one eye and pink shoes, was born out of boredom, that of actress Jenny Slate and director Dean Fleischer Camp at a wedding, doodling on a table this who would become their favorite character. We can only thank these newlyweds for the invitation!
More than ten years ago, this sketch became a viral sensation on YouTube, a short animated film where the essentials were already shining brightly: a microscopic antihero full of humanism, carried by a small hoarse voice, that of Jenny Slate, dispensing her wisdom, and her naivety, to whoever would listen. With his hesitant approach – accentuated by the technique of stop motion animation in an environment and by certain actors captured in live action – and his involuntary aphorisms, Marcel quickly won hearts, then jumping into the pages albums for children, to finally end up on the big screen.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is partly inspired by this long gestation, celebrating in passing the virtues of patience to better dissect this unexpected success on the Web. In fact, this tale for young and old cheerfully makes fun of this instant virtual glory, pointing out its perverse and deleterious effects. ” It’s an audience, not a community “, declares the perceptive Marcel in front of the impressive number of viewings of the first images taken by Dean (the filmmaker in his own role, life-size!).
This documentary filmmaker failed in this house transformed into an Airbnb after the shattering departure of the owners following a separation, finding himself in the middle of a sentimental slump and without a fixed address. The former occupants have left the premises with all of Marcel’s siblings, now alone with his grandmother Connie (wonderful Isabella Rossellini), whose tone of voice suggests a fairly near end to the journey. Dean then decides to observe the daily life of these two molluscs who are only molluscs in name: ingenious, determined, and despite everything overflowing optimism, this tandem has the soul of tenderness, and shows an exemplary resourcefulness in the face of the vicissitudes of this existence in miniature.
A bittersweet fable
A documentary about him? Marcel does not see the need for it, first because he does not know what it is, ending up understanding that ” it’s the truth, kind of “. Thanks to these cinema-vérité looks, the story offers a disjointed appearance, and finely pinpoints situations that are alternately comical and melancholy. This (chic) house in the suburbs of Los Angeles thus becomes a vast theater of life, a garden of wonders, or even a battlefield. Now well aware of the seductive power of images, Marcel then had the good idea to use them to find his own – which earned us hilarious sequences worthy of the best stories on Instagram — until the famous Lesley Stahl from the no less famous public affairs show 60 Minutesinterested in his crusade.
If you find this delightfully absurd, you have yet to see, hear and, above all, experience nothing in terms of emotions, surprises and joy in front of this bittersweet fable on the vital importance of the extended community and on the imperious necessity of friendship, seasoned with savory replies arousing both tears and laughter. For example, to explain the grandmother’s singular accent, Marcel simply points out that ” she’s not from here, she’s from the garage ! And through this same magnificent and aging figure, you will not find a better muse to explain the importance of the respect due to elders, and the necessary work of mourning.
Thanks to their exceptional sensitivity and delicious sense of irony, Dean Fleischer Camp and Jenny Slate have fashioned a creature from another world: that of unconditional benevolence and all-out solidarity. Ours has never needed a hero of Marcel’s caliber so much.