Challenges of a solitary mind

A snail body with fancy boots opens the film as she confidently strides onto the scene and instantly establishes her most distinctive characteristics: The snail is simultaneously hard and tender with her ever-present house, at once introverted and open, eager to be on the move even if slower than other life forms – but even this assessment only results from a relativizing comparison. (A very funny joke goes: What does the snail sitting on a turtle say when the turtle starts to walk? – “Weeeh!!!”)

Astrid Rothaug's animated film, Challenges of a solitary mind is about a female protagonist in midst of familiar everyday situations: big family dinners, parties, office work, me-time, romantic love, bonding with a kindred spirit. Rothaug captures all of this in clean black pen-strokes with sparing color accents. The sound follows the actions and highlights the mood, ranging from benevolent to exhausting to threatening. The snail's shell either covers her up with a sonorous noise or fans back to reveal her – it all depends on whether the everyday heroine needs protection or is in a state of exaltation. It is her decision as whether to calcify or not. Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale “The Snail and the Rosebush” comes to mind, about how the two protagonists exchange philosophical views on their peaceful coexistence. The bush always has to sprout blossoms to emerge from itself, unlike the snail beneath her which, “[...] has much inside itself, it has itself,” just like the solitary mind that lends Rothaug's film its title. Very reassuring. (Melanie Letschnig)

Translation: Eve Heller