Robot Dreams (Spain-France 2023)

I have been intrigued by the poster for this film for some time after missing its release in the UK back in March this year. I should have made more effort to see it in a cinema. What a wonderful film! I’m not surprised to discover that this drawn animation began life as a graphic novel. Sara Varon produced the graphic novel in 2007 to acclaim and there was some initial talk of a computer animated film. Fortunately that never happened and this drawn animation is a Spanish-French co-production with Pablo Berger in Spain listed as writer-adapter and director fronting a team of animators and artists. The film has no dialogue apart from the occasional ‘Hm’ but it does have a full soundtrack of sound effects and both diegetic and non-diegetic music tracks. This makes the narrative easily accessible to both children and adults without the need for subtitles.

The world created by Varon is 1980s Manhattan peopled entirely by animals. Some characters have names but usually they are known simply as ‘Dog’, the lead character or ‘Duck’ etc. Dog is not gendered and s/he lives in an apartment in a brownstone. It’s a lonely life and on TV one day Dog sees an ad for a robot companion. Dog orders one and it arrives in a box labelled ‘2000 Amica’ from the Berger Corp. There must be a few others, like me, who once owned an Amiga 2000 computer from Commodore in the early 1990s. In Latin America the film is titled ‘Mi amigo Robot’. Dog assembles ‘Robot’ from the box of parts and after a good gag about finally reading the manual (‘RTFM!’), Robot comes alive and a friendship is instant.

I don’t want to spoil the whole narrative so I’ll just report that having become firm friends, a misadventure leads to the two being separated. Dog knows where Robot is but can’t get access to make a rescue. This is where the ‘Robot dreams’ come from as the Robot creates fantasies about being back with Dog. When Dog is finally allowed access, Robot is gone, taken away by someone else. But this isn’t the end of the story. Robot is ‘reborn’ in a slightly different form. Can Dog find Robot again?

I’m guessing that most of the international audience will know New York in the 1980s mainly through the movies and aspects of the film do suggest particular films. I was reminded of Do the Right Thing from 1989, possibly because of the use of ‘boom boxes’ but also from general street scenes. That film was full of racial tension but the use here of only animals as characters erases differences of both race and gender to a certain extent, though I guess even then there are stereotypical connotations that might be drawn out by the ‘casting’ of animal types for certain characters.

Perhaps the key to this film’s success, besides the lovely drawn characters, is the way in which the narrative draws upon well-known moments/sequences from different genres. This is a hybrid romantic comedy, horror, science fiction/fantasy and comedy-drama. It is also wonderfully supported by its musical score and the use of some well-known pop songs – you will recognise some tunes even if you don’t know their titles. One of my favourite sequences riffs on a Busby Berkeley idea and Dog is lonely on Halloween with some intriguing trick or treaters coming to his door. It’s quite long for an animation with such a slight narrative, but there are some inventive ideas about how to explore the feelings of Dog and Robot and each sequence is so well drawn with lots of things to spot in the mise en scène. I should warn you that there are sad moments as well as uplifting ones. I’m not the best guide to what might be suitable/entertaining for children but ‘PG’ seems the most sensible rating for the film. The moral of the story seems to be that we all need to learn that life throws us a curve ball sometimes and we have to learn to roll with it and find happiness again. Many audiences will find the film moving and will shed a tear but all should leave the screening feeling uplifted.

I watched the film on MUBI but I believe it is also available on Apple, Amazon and Curzon in the UK. If you can find it, it is highly recommended. The drawing reminded me of the best anime in terms of costumes and backgrounds. Here’s a trailer which fortunately doesn’t give away the plot: