“Robot Dreams” Review
A robot and dog explore friendship in 1984 New York City in “Robot Dreams”, a marvelous animated film that was nominated at the 96th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and has now been theatrically distributed by NEON.
As a film lover and filmmaker, I try to avoid mindless, overt negativity. I think that, as a cinephile, it’s my duty to be critical but to also be realistic with film discussion. With some exceptions, there are elements of bad films that I can see good in and the inverse is just as true with shortcomings existing in many films that I have enjoyed. It’s because of this mindset that I try to avoid using the word “perfect” because I don’t want to rob such a powerful word of its weight by bestowing it on too many films. In fact, out of all of the films that I’ve seen this year, I think that I could only call two films perfect: “Dune: Part Two” and “Perfect Days”. Well, now that I’ve seen “Robot Dreams”, that number has been bumped up to three. With incredible storytelling, imagination and animation, “Robot Dreams” is one of the best films out right now and is a landmark for animated stories.
Set in 1984 New York, the story of “Robot Dreams” exists in a hand drawn animated world where anthropomorphic animals all live and have the same problems that we humans have. One of them is loneliness which has befallen Dog. Seeking companionship, Dog purchases Robot and the pair become friends. However, when the pair become separated, Dog and Robot must discover who they are on their own and see if they can find the way back to each other.
As much as I love computer animation from studios like Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks, it has unfortunately led to the demise of hand drawn animation in America. Really think about the last American film you saw that was made up of 2D animation. It’s tough isn’t it? When it comes to animation, I love variety and seeing different styles all coexisting in the same market. Among last year’s animated offerings were a computer animated Pixar film in “Elemental”, the claymation comfort of Aardman in “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget”, the chaotic wonder of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and Hayao Miyazaki’s return to animation with the hand drawn “The Boy and the Heron”. I desire more hand drawn work and “Robot Dreams” has fulfilled that longing.
This Spanish and French co-production, written and directed by Pablo Berger, takes so many risks yet feels so familiar and comforting. For starters, the film has no dialogue whatsoever. None of these characters talk and that’s okay. In fact, it’s outstanding. “Robot Dreams” understands the power of visual storytelling and what better medium to do that with than animation? The film’s animation is stunning and feels so much like a vivid comic book, fitting since “Robot Dreams” is an adaptation of Sara Varon’s comic of the same name. Watching “Robot Dreams” reminded me of reading a comic like “Calvin and Hobbes”, full of imagination and childish humor but with so much sincerity and even pathos attached that my appreciation has only expanded into adulthood. I felt so attached to these characters and became completely enveloped in their friendship.
While dialogue can be very captivating and is often integral to many films, it’s not always essential and this film is proof of that. If anything, it makes the film all the more accessible with my screening of the film having audience members who spoke French, Spanish and Japanese. No subtitles were necessary and nothing was getting lost in translation, we were all just experiencing the same emotions together with the differences of our daily lives being melted away by the love we were all feeling for this story.
Throughout the film, you get a strong sense of who each of these characters are and why they work so well together. Dog is lonely but desires to be a part of people’s lives. When he feels that he can help or be a part of something, he wants to take the chance but feels too in his own head to do so. Robot is a wide-eyed optimist who is just so happy to be alive for the first time and to be taking in the world. He’s a bit naive but quickly learns and keeps his metalic head up. They compliment each other perfectly and create a friendship that feels strangely believable when you realize just how ridiculous the concept of “Robot Dreams” is. It’s through this concept that Pablo Berger and his gifted animators can find both the fantastical and realistic wonders and setbacks of friendship and bring it to life.
Since I’m a New Yorker, I may be somewhat biased but the version of New York that exists in “Robot Dreams” looks amazing. While the film is set in 1984, don’t expect to see anything too stereotypical regarding the 80s. This feels distinctly real with a lot of the classic New York attitude with a lot of the beauty. Berger clearly knows this world all too well because there’s all of these little details present that could only come from either personal experience or intense research. Either way, I was blown away at how well this film translated what it means to be a New Yorker. When I saw that Dog and Robot had rented a copy of “The Wizard of Oz” from Kim’s Video, I almost screamed with joy in the theater. Luckily, I was still self-possessed enough to not worry my fellow theater attendees. If you’re a massive cinema geek, there’s also going to be a lot of visual nods to other films that are going to make you happy with titles including “Psycho”, “The Wizard of Oz” and “Manhattan”. They don’t just exist as a form of visual homage. “Robot Dreams” will sometimes use this homage for comedy or will rework it into a mesmerizing piece of animation.
While I would love nothing more than to go into extreme detail about how well “Robot Dreams” functions and even do a scene-by-scene analysis, so much of enjoying the film comes from going in completely blind. I won’t even discuss what the title even means because it’s just too good. What I will go into is how phenomenal Alfonso de Vilallonga’s musical score is. With no dialogue, the music is even more essential to the film and it excels in being incredibly moving. It’s the best score that I’ve heard set to an animated film since the work of Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste on “Soul”.
“Robot Dreams” just seems like a film that no major company would have the balls to make because some guy with a chart would tell them that it’s not profitable or that kids aren’t going to be interested. But that’s just not true. “Robot Dreams” has enough beauty, comedy, drama and heart to make it appealing to people of all ages. There’s a purity to the film that deserves as much attention as humanly possible.
