ROBOT DREAMS premiered in the UK at the BFI London Film Festival, having already garnered 17 wins and 44 nominations of well-deserved awards, including Annecy and Sitges among others. It has now been nominated for the 2024 Oscars and we wish it well.
It is based on the graphic novel by North American writer,novelist and illustrator, Sara Varon, famous for her work in children’s literature. Her characters, as in ROBOT DREAMS are non- human, but cleverly anthropomorphised so that human idiosyncrasies creep in with a quirky and humorous approach.
All his has been beautifully and whimsically captured in this dialogue–free animated feature, ROBOT DREAMS. Berger and Varon collaborated on the film script and Pablo Berger has, once again, revealed his wonderful sense of humour, which was also in evidence in his hilarious , but darker, ‘Abracadabra (2017)’. Equally, Varon’s characters are delightfully original and eccentric and the two protagonists never fail to move us.
Dog is feeling lonely and friendless at home in 1980s New York so following seeing an ad on the TV he decides to purchase a Robot friend.
This leads to his flat-pack robot arriving and coming to life. The two then develop a close buddy friendship with a multitude of shared, musical interests and activities. But, everything suddenly starts to go wrong after they visit the beach where the salt water corrodes the robot so much he becomes paralyzed. He is unable to leave the beach which is then closed for the winter. Dog’s frantic efforts to get help are thwarted at every turn by unhelpful beach wardens and Dog and Robot are separated, both in pain, dreaming of one another, but unable to do anything about the situation.
Things get worse for Robot when metal detectorist monkeys start to steal his parts to sell, and Dog chances upon a leg and desolate, lies in his bed with it. Thanks to an enterprising racoon, things start to improve when he finds Robot’s head and remaining limbs, and improvises a spare to get him back together again. That is when we all being to wonder whether Dog and Robot will ever meet again?
These lovable characters ooze charm at every pore, as do the side characters. There are gentle throw-away humorous sketches and jokes all around. This is Pablo Berger’s 4th feature, and follows the flamenco styled Snow White- ‘Blancanieves’ and the black humoured ‘Abracadabra’.
Here there might be no dialogue, but certainly no one suffers, as the gentle animated storytelling is more than enough to express all the emotions of these two lovely characters. For Berger, this is a huge change and brings out his natural feel for comedy and sharp wit.
ROBOT DREAMS is a tragi-comic tale of loss, as well as the gaining of a friend. But when the cruelty of the world falls upon the pair, Berger does not skimp around the pain. So there is depth to this story of a deep friendship and how it endures despite fateful events befalling the two protagonists.
Pablo Berger
With its wonderful eccentric sense of humour, and array of original and comical secondary characters,be they just walking down the street, or selling hotdogs in the park, ROBOT DREAMS is at times, reminiscent of the memorable café scene in Star Wars Episode IV where Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi meet Han Solo.
The musical interludes are seamlessly woven into the story so that they are not ‘stuck on top’ as so often happens, resulting in a truly delightful and extremely original way to tell a moving story. With simplicity and even minimalist animation and design, this moving story is well told and it echoes in us all. Who has not been lonely and desperately wanting a friend at some point? And when they are torn apart the pain is real and we all ache with them.
ROBOT DREAMS (2023) will have its UK release March 22nd 2024
Directed by Pablo Berger/ Written by Pablo Berger and Sara Varon. From the book Robot Dreams by Sara Varon / Producers Sandra Tapia, Jérôme Vidal, Pablo Berger/ Editor: Fernando Franco/ Music scores: Alfonso de Villallonga & Yukp Harami/ Animation; José Luis Ágreda, Benoît Feroumont,Daniel Fernández Casas & Patricia Andrades/ Sound: Steven Ghouti and Fabiola Ordoyo.
Cast: Ivan Labanda/ Albert Trifol Segarra/ Rafa Calvo
